


Fondness makes the heart grow absent

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared), red_squared



Series: The Scorching One [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: reversathon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-02
Updated: 2009-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:05:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall, https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/red_squared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I do know it. You aren't dying. And I love you too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [polkadotsquared](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=polkadotsquared).



> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/reversathon/profile)[**reversathon**](http://community.livejournal.com/reversathon/) 2007, for Ophelia Providence, who requested _Remus/Sirius, a glorious romance in amongst the chaos of the first war. Alternatively, anything involving the Marauders and Lily, set during the first war like a dinner party or something fun in the midst of angst and chaos. _ Also, thank you to my wonderful beta [](http://fleshdress.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fleshdress.livejournal.com/)**fleshdress** who beta'd this enormous fic in record time. In spite of her wonderful beta-ing, I kept tinkering with the fic right up until the deadline, and so any mistakes are mine alone.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> [**Read this fic on LiveJournal**](http://red-squared.livejournal.com/55553.html).  
> [](http://red-squared.dreamwidth.org/48471.html)**Read this fic on Dreamwidth**.

_I woke twice last night, walked to the window _   
_Looked down at the gravestones guarding St Patrick's in the snow _   
_And I thought if that's where it all ends _   
_I should get home again with you_

("Fondness makes the heart grow absent" – From The Whitlams' "Little cloud")

_Day one_

"Remus? Hello?"

He's not really expecting an answer, so it's a little alarming when a brilliant, red envelope lifts itself off the kitchen counter and flings itself at him.

"_TELL HIM WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE LATE BECAUSE OF HIM! HE SAID HE WAS ON HIS WAY FIVE HOURS AGO AND WE'RE – _

_"Yes Prongs, I can – look, why don't you go and sit with Lily while I – oh, thanks, Lily. Won't be a moment." _

He was actually supposed to have been home two days ago, but some sort of emergency had come up – not that anybody at the hospital will actually tell him what it was – and all of the qualified Healers, and the more senior Trainees, had vanished into the night to deal with it, leaving the mediwitches and the first and Second Year Trainees to hold the fort in their absence.

_"Hello, Sirius?"_

Remus' voice is much softer now. Settling into an armchair, he holds the Howler up to his ear – he hopes it won't get loud again – so that he can hear Remus.

"_Not sure when you'll get home. I've kept everybody waiting, see, because… I know you said you wouldn't be able to join us after all – Oh, and I hope they're at least paying you well for making you stay back when you're supposed to be on leave. But I've made everybody wait, because I wanted to see you to say goodbye before we left. I wish you were coming with us._"

He wishes that he was too.

"_Instead, I'll be all on my ownsome, watching Lily and Prongs making sheep's eyes at one another, and Marlene and Wormtail doing much the same. In fact, the only reason I've managed to delay so long is because they're more intent on snogging one another than chivvying me out the door. _

_"Anyway. I've been pretending to search for something, and said I'd have a look for it in your room, and leave you a note if you were worried that it was missing. Just so that I could come into your room and dictate this letter in peace. Last thing I need is for them to hear me say that I wished you were here so I could lick you all over."_

As exhausted as he is, his cock responds with an enthusiastic quiver at the sound of those words, spoken in Remus' voice.

_"Or, worse still, for them to hear me say that I love you, and that I'm missing you already._"

This time it's his mouth, which automatically breaks into a smile at the sound of _those _words, spoken in Remus' voice.

_"I hope you've made it home at a decent hour – I wasn't sure if you'd need dinner or if you'd only get back in time for breakfast, so I made both. Please eat **something **before you go to bed. And I do mean bed – no sprawling comatose on the sofa!_

_"I'll owl as soon as we arrive – in spite of all of his insistence that we be on time, Prongs still isn't sure exactly where we'll be arriving, the useless arse – and send you our coordinates so you can Apparate up for a night, if you're able. Or if not, I'll send you a Howler that you can actually wank to instead of this last-minute garble. _

_"I really do love you, you know. I don't think I say it often enough. And I **am **missing you already. I should sign off. Listen, I'm not sure how awake you are, but if you want to hear all of this drivel again, then just kiss the top of the page – I'm going to try a charm that will replay the Howler if you do. If nothing happens, it's because it didn't work, not because I didn't try._

_"Take care of yourself while I'm away, and hopefully I'll see you very soon."_

It's a while before he realises that Remus' voice has stopped, and that he's grinning down stupidly at the Howler in his hands.

_Eat something, did he say? _He levers himself up off the sofa and looks over to the kitchen, as though he'll be able to see his dinner from here. Still clutching the Howler in one hand, he staggers out of their front room and off towards the kitchen.

Everything is spotless and wiped down and put away. He has a momentary surge of panic at the sight of all that cleanliness. It makes the flat look a lot emptier than it is. Even the fire in the hearth is out and the small cauldron that is always on its hook over the flames has been taken down. He's no idea where it might be. For that matter, he's not sure he knows where to start looking for most of the things that are normally found in the draining tray, or on the slate counter top, or hanging by the fire, but have now been put away.

His panic recedes as he realises that Remus probably feels guilty enough going off on holiday without Sirius, and would feel even guiltier going off after leaving a mess for Sirius to tidy up.

He's always at Remus to put things away when he's done with them, and Remus always responds that certain things – like their tea mugs, or the kettle, or the fry pan they to use toast sandwiches – are used so often that there's no point putting them away, because by the time you'd washed them and they'd drained dry, you needed to use them again.

Instead of the usual clutter on the countertop – and it's strange that he can feel homesick for the same clutter that drives him insane every time Remus contributes to it and walks off without doing anything about it – there are two plates.

One contains a stack of toasted bacon sandwiches, and the other contains some sort of stew. Remus has put both of them under a stasis charm so that they'll still be fit for consumption when Sirius gets home. He picks up the stew and takes it over to the kitchen table.

_Fuck_. _Forgot the silverware,_ he thinks irritably, aware that he can't eat the stew with his fingers, not really in the mood to go back to get a spoon, and too exhausted to even think about summoning one.

With all of the true Healers out dealing with the emergency, St Mungo's solution to the problem with the staff shortage was to have some of the First and Second Year Trainees pretending to be full Healers with a mediwitch accompanying them at all times to ensure that they didn't do anything disastrous.

As one of the First Year Trainees who was trusted to masquerade as a full Healer, Sirius has seen and dealt with more patients in two days than he was allowed near for the whole of the ten months prior.

Still, it was fun at first, to be able to Heal a patient directly, rather than only being trusted to extract samples, or to ask patients all of the boring questions that decided whether they could go on to see a Healer or firmly be told to go home and stop wasting everybody's time.

But after the first ten hours he did without a break, it got more and more annoying.

He'd be on his way to the staff room for a cup of tea and one of the mediwitches would pounce on him, demanding that he come and attend to some vampire that had accidentally been fed cooked meat.

Or he'd be desperately trying to get to the loo when one of the patients he'd stuffed into a waiting room earlier would see that he appeared to be free and rush over to show him her rash. _Again._

Or he'd be in the staff room, using the Floo to call Remus and tell him that he'd be on his way home shortly, when seventeen wizards from the retirement home would arrive, all insisting that their annual check up be done right away.

_Remus_… he thinks fondly, forgetting about the food. Bringing the Howler to his lips, he kisses the top of the letter, hoping that Remus' charm actually works.

"_TELL HIM WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE LATE BECAUSE OF HIM! HE SAID HE WAS ON HIS WAY FIVE HOURS AGO AND WE'RE – _

_"Yes Prongs," _Remus'voice says, unruffled and amused and exactly what he needs to hear right now. _"Look, why don't you go and sit with Lily while I – oh, thanks, Lily. Won't be a moment… Hello, Sirius?"_

Slouching back into the seat, he cradles the letter close, smiling as Remus once again apologises for leaving without saying goodbye, and then tells Sirius, over and over again, that Remus loves him.

~~*~~

_Day Eight_

"So this is where you work," Regulus says, glancing around the foyer. "What a dump."

"What are _you _doing here?" he asks, with barely concealed hostility.

"I've an appointment with Igraine Andros."

"You have an appointment with the head of the hospital?" he asks incredulously.

"Naturally. If they want my money - "

"Why would wewant _your_ money?" But he knows the answer even as he asks the question.

"The Bones are trying to raise money for the hospital again," Regulus says, eyeing the patients waiting in the foyer with disdain. Much like Sirius, Regulus has almost never been ill. Completely unlike Sirius, Regulus has nothing but contempt for people who aren't in the prime of health. "I thought I should come and see the place, before I commit any of our money to - "

"Black! We haven't got time for you to stop and chat with every – Oh, my God," Deanna says, coming skidding to a halt as she sees Regulus. She's one of the mediwitches that has almost no patience with Trainees pretending to be Healers. "I didn't realise you'd arrived already, Master Black," she gushes, practically genuflecting. "Has someone offered you a cup of tea?"

Her deference to Regulus – particularly in light of her curtness with _him _– is extremely grating. He doesn't blame her, though.

Regulus is the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and might come through with a generous donation.

Sirius, on the other hand, is a First Year Trainee Healer who regularly pinches supplies from the apothecary cupboard for non-hospital related uses. Even though nobody has actually been able to pin it on him. Yet.

Regulus smiles at the mediwitch and discreetly gestures for her to wait to one side. "I need to know what the money will be used for," Regulus says, as though they haven't been interrupted. "_If _the donation goes ahead. Mother's close friends with Amelia, obviously, but she made it clear she didn't want me coming here."

"I bet," he says. "What does she want you spending the money on instead?" There's no doubt that the money _will _go to some cause or another. It's tax relief, after all.

"Oh, I don't doubt you can read about it in the papers, along with everybody else."

"Regulus - "

"Really, Sirius," Regulus says, sounding bored. "It's one thing to run out on your family. It's another thing entirely to expect that you'll still have access to privileged - "

"Yes, all right. I get the idea. Don't let me keep you from your important appointments," he says, starting to turn away.

"If you must know," Regulus says, sounding slightly nettled, "I suspect she wants it to go to the Mulcibers. She had me visit with them."

"What, at that tedious garden party they always throw to mark the start of summer? How was it?"

"Don't tell me you weren't invited? Then again, it's such an _exclusive _affair. They had a charity auction, raising money for research being conducted by some potions expert or the other. Something about developing a universal antidote for all poisons – I wasn't really paying attention.

"Still, the final decision on whether or not to make the donation is mine," Regulus says more loudly, causing Deanna to start curtsying all over again. "I'll put in a good word with Madam Andros for you," he adds condescendingly, before turning his attention to Deanna once more, gesturing for her to lead the way.

It is an effort to go back to the staffroom as though nothing has happened.

_Fucking school holidays,_ he thinks viciously. He'd forgotten that Hogwarts has let out for the summer, meaning that instead of being safely tucked away in a remote corner of Scotland, his younger brother is back in the same city as Sirius is.

In truth, it's not just seeing Regulus for the first time in nearly a year that has him in a strop. It's the fact that he hasn't slept properly in four days because there is too much work to do. Also the fact that he hasn't heard anything from Remus recently. No new Howlers either yesterday or this morning. _He said he'd send me the coordinates to Apparate to… And not only hasn't he done that, but now he isn't even writing to me anymore… Probably having a fantastic time up there without me._

That's not at all true, though. From the last letter he received, he knows that Remus is missing him terribly. And in one of the letters before that, he'd mentioned something about wishing that the two of them had a bond – one that would let them know how the other one was feeling, or what they were thinking.

_Wish we'd done that before you left,_ he thinks. _I'd be able to find you wherever you were in the world. With my eyes closed. Without even trying._

In part, he's grateful for the crushing workload – it saves him from having to go home to an empty flat, or curl up in his bed alone, or wanting to swear because he doesn't know where Remus is and can't go to him. But he's used what little spare time he has to research bonding spells.

"Is Trainee Healer Black available?"

He must be imagining things… _That can't be Remus' voice… They're not due back for another week…_

Frowning, he heads back out into the foyer to investigate.

"There is no one here by that name," the triage mediwitch – he thinks her name might be Suzette – tells Remus in her frostiest voice.

"Trainee Healer _Sirius_ Black," Remus says politely, in no position to understand what he is saying wrong. He has something wrapped around his left arm and is holding onto it tightly with his right hand. "Is Trainee Healer Sirius Black available?"

Before Suzette can waste more of Remus' time, Sirius steps towards them, eyes intent on whatever it is that is wrong with Remus' arm.

"Thanks, Suzette," he says quickly, as both of them look over to him. Suzette, for some inexplicable reason, is glaring at him. _Probably thinks it's **my **fault she's such an irritating cow. _"I'll take it from here." He gives Remus a wave when it seems as though Remus is waiting for _her_ permission before approaching.

"Sorry about her," he whispers conspiratorially, once they're in the relative safety of one of the examination rooms. "I can't imagine what I've done to upset her, but -"

"Her name is _Marion_, Sirius. Not Suzette."

"I beg your pardon? How do you -"

"She had it printed on a button, pinned to her -"

"Oh, you can't trust that. They swap those all the time just to trick us."

"They? Us? What on earth are you talking about?"

"_They._ The mediwitches. Hate us Trainees because they know we'll choose to be Healers instead of mediwizards or -"

"It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that _your_ button happens to say 'Healer Sinclair'?"

"That's _because_ we have to attend to patients and we need them to believe that we really are Healers, otherwise they won't have any faith in our abilities."

"I can't imagine why," Remus says, smiling at him. "Not when I've been here nearly two minutes already and you haven't said anything about my arm."

"Your arm? What about – Oh!" he realises, forgetting all about Suzette or Marionor whatever her name is, and focusing on Remus.

He casts the mild scourgify charm that all Healers are required to cast before laying hands on a patient.

"Is that why she said she didn't know who you were? Because you're supposed to be Healer Sinclair?"

"No, it's because there isn't a Trainee Healer Sirius Black."

"What?"

"Yeah. Trainee Healer Sirius Black doesn't exist. Only _Trainee _Sirius Black. I won't be Trainee _Healer _Sirius Black until I've started my Third Year." Remus lets go of his arm, allowing it to rest in Sirius' hands. "I'm back to being an Ickle Firstie again," he says, trying to keep his voice light.

"That isn't very nice of her," Remus says.

"Forget about her. What's the matter with your - Is this my shirt?" he asks, carefully peeling the wrapping away from Remus' arm.

"No, I just happened to like yours so much that I went out and bought one exactly like it."

"Liar. I saw the way you – This didn't happen today," he says, looking directly at Remus. The dirty, red-brown scar gouged into Remus' arm between the elbow and the shoulder – with bruising on either side of it – is at _least_ a day old. "Don't tell me you've spent a whole day trying to get past the likes of Suze- "

"It's only a day old. I thought I had everything under control, but it still hadn't fully closed up by yesterday, so I -"

"Is this why you stopped writing to me? And where are the others?" he asks, trying to keep the anger out of his voice as he supports Remus' arm with one hand while reaching for Healer Sinclair's spare kit with the other. "They _did _come with you," he says, not meaning it for a question.

"I didn't want to ruin their holiday further," Remus says mildly, smiling tightly when Sirius pinches the skin. "Can't you just use _episkey?_"

"I was going to ask you the same thing. If it's not cast on the same day as the injury, it's no good. What kept you from casting it? Or getting Marlene to do it?"

"There'd been a lot of alcohol…" Remus replies vaguely.

"Right. So how did you get this, then?"

"I told you. There'd been - "

" – a lot of alcohol, yes, I get the idea. Nothing more than that?"

"I didn't want to make a fuss. And then this morning it was starting to throb and I thought – What's that thing?"

"It'll hold your arm in place," he says, looping the cool, white Healing straps over Remus' arm. The copper rod that the straps are attached to levitates into the air, calibrated to rise to a set height so that Remus' arm remains elevated without straining his shoulder. "I need to get your arm above your heart before I tie it off – that'll keep the blood from -"

"Suzette informed me you were attending to a patient without a mediwitch to assist you," comes an extremely familiar, extremely unwelcome voice from the doorway. Sirius turns guiltily to face Healer Dearborn. "I told her that she was mistaken. I was right, wasn't I? You were simply going to set the patient's arm for treatment and then fetch assistance before proceeding, _weren't_ you?"

Dearborn's uniform is stained and rumpled, and his salt-and-pepper hair is pointing in every direction, but his dark eyes are stern and alert.

"Yes, Healer Dearborn," he says quickly, relieved when Dearborn smiles. "I wanted to make sure the apparatus was in place before I… before I admitted him as a patient," he lies.

Dearborn raises an eyebrow at him. True, it had been stupid to sweep Remus past Suzette without filling out the appropriate forms, but Dearborn has almost always been fairly easygoing about procedural details.

Still, he can use his carelessness to convince Dearborn that he wasn't going to treat anything until all of the paperwork was done.

"I was trying to get Remus to tell me what caused it so I'd know who to refer him on to, especially since - "

"That will do," Dearborn tells him as he approaches and inspects the way Sirius has set the straps around Remus' arm. "Very neat work. Thank you, Sirius. I can take over from here," he says, stroking his spade-shaped beard the way he always does when he's thinking hard.

"Could I - " he starts to say, as he rises from his seat.

"I do not require assistance," Dearborn says politely, dismissing him all the same. "You'll need to change if you intend to go home."

"Home?"

It occurs to him that if Dearborn is back, some of the other Healers must have returned as well.

"You and the other Trainees have done very well to keep the place ticking over. But we can't leave St Mungo's to the Trainees and the mediwitches forever. Mr Lupin," Dearborn says, turning to Remus, "please take one of these. It will help with the pain."

Dearborn 's body is blocking Sirius' view of whatever it is he's offering Remus, but it seems to take effect almost immediately.

"I didn't hear you return," he says absently, watching as some of the tension goes out of Remus' face. He's not insolent enough to directly question one of St Mungo's most senior Healers, but he hopes that some discreet prodding will shed some light on what's been happening over the last five days. "It must have been a really awful situation, if almost all of you needed to be on the site. Will there be many new patients?"

"Almost everything was handled there itself," Dearborn says, taking Sirius' seat and frowning at Remus' arm. "That was the whole point of sending all of the senior staff."

"Where was -"

"You can't really be that eager for another shift, Sirius," Dearborn says, fussing with one of the straps on the apparatus. Remus turns slightly to give Sirius a pained smile. "Everything's been dealt with. There isn't going to be a flood of new patien- "

"I could help, sir," he says quickly, surprised at himself for interrupting Dearborn. "With Remus, I mean. I'm sure I've seen that sort of injury before and I've learned so much while - "

"That will do, Black," Dearborn says more firmly this time, turning to look at him. Not Sirius. Black. Oh, he's definitely pushed Dearborn much further than he has any right to. "Go and get changed. Healer Sinclair will want her robes back when she starts her shift."

"Yes, sir," he says, trying not to sound petulant. Remus looks up at him over Dearborn's head and blows him a kiss with his uninjured arm. "I'll wait outside."

"Will this take long?" Remus asks Dearborn.

Dearborn adjusts his glasses and brings his face closer to Remus' arm for a better look. "On closer examination, it looks as though we may need to keep you here overnight."

"Overnight?" Sirius says, sounding surprised. The injury hadn't looked that serious. "I don't mind waiting until - "

"_I_ mind, Sirius. You are a Trainee of St Mungo's, and as such, you will take instruction from - "

"I didn't mean it like that! I meant, since I'm coming off my shift, I could stay because Remus is my friend, and - "

"Out of the question, Sirius. Only family members are permitted to be present during an examination," Dearborn says, still frowning down at Remus' arm.

He really should get out of there so that Dearborn can give Remus' injury his full attention, but at the same time, he hasn't seen Remus in more than a week. It's the longest they've been apart from one another since they started… since they _started_, back at Hogwarts. He's hardly to be blamed for wanting to stay with his boyfriend and give him what comfort he can. There's nothing wrong with that.

_There's everything wrong with it, and you know it. If you tell them that Remus is your boyfriend – if you tell them that you **have **a boyfriend – you'll be fired._

"What if it's all right with Remus?" he asks, looking at Remus for confirmation.

Before Remus can even open his mouth, Dearborn releases Remus' arm so that it is held in place by the rod and the straps. Walking over to Sirius, Dearborn gestures for Sirius to step outside. Dearborn follows, closing the door behind them.

"Healer Dearborn, I - "

"It is not Remus' decision to make. It is mine. And before you ask me again, I don't want you in there, because there's nothing you can do for him. You've been on duty long enough already and you should go home and rest so that you can resume your duties when you are required to. Your friend is injured. He needs assistance. He doesn't need you butting in where you aren't needed in order to satisfy your own curiosity."

"I didn't – Please, sir. He's my best friend, and he's hurt. Can't you tell me - "

"Of course I can't," Dearborn says, slightly more gently. "You're nearly at the end of your First Year, Sirius. You should know by now that whatever a patient confides in a Healer must be kept secret."

"Not from the other Healers," he says, annoyed at Dearborn for thinking that he doesn't know the rules. "You can discuss anything with any of the other Hea- "

"You're not one of the other Healers yet, Sirius, whatever you've been allowed to tell the patients these past few days. You're not even a Trainee Healer. I don't doubt that the work over the last few days has been more interesting and more satisfying than what you've been trusted with on your own as a First Year Trainee. But you are not a Healer, nor are you likely to ever be one, if you don't wrap your mind around that fact at once. Do I make my meaning clear?"

"Yes, Healer."

"Now go and get changed, and then go home. There's nothing for you to do here and if I find you still here when I've finished admitting your friend, I will sign you on for another shift."

"I don't mind signing on for another shift, sir."

"Oh, I'm fairly sure that you will, Sirius, when you realise that you'll be spending your next shift helping the apothecaries extract the livers, spleens and eyes from toads. And the one after it. And the one after _that_."

He can't think of anything more unpleasant than walking away when he knows that his boyfriend is in pain, just on the other side of that door, and that it's an injury that's given one of their most experienced Healers pause.

"Sirius," Dearborn says, looking at him as though he can't believe that his threats are having no effect. "Loyalty is all very well and good, but for now… _Go home_. And on your way out, tell Suzette I want to see her."

"Yes, Healer," he says, turning away. He's so angry, it's all he can trust himself to say.

After telling Suzette that Dearborn wants her – hopefully Remus will mention how unhelpful she was when he turned up, and she'll get the dressing down she deserves – he storms off to the changing rooms.

"Finally, we can get out of here!" Samuel Cresp, one of the Second Year Trainees, is already stripping off when Sirius arrives. "Next time we do this, we really need to give some thought to who we're impersonating. Midley's robes are much too tight on my arms. The number of times that bloody mediwitch, Anna or whatever she wants to call herself, told me off for sloppy wand work… All because I could barely move my arms."

"Can't see what you're complaining about," he says, undoing the fastenings on his own borrowed robe. "I got Sinclair. Twice, the mediwitches pretended to forget that they knew about the switch and then pretended to be sorry for telling my patients that 'Healer Sinclair's just caught up at the moment. She'll be with you shortly'."

"Little bitches," Cresp spits angrily, stuffing the robes he's just removed into one of the chutes designed to take it to the Hospital Elves for cleaning and pressing. "I'm glad the Healers are finally back, even if it's just to keep us from being pushed around by those snotty, interfering, incompetent, little - "

"Had a hard time with Anna, did you?"

"Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that she was the Healer and that I was the inept mediwizard, with the way she carried on. I'd almost rather have Healer Blessendon breathing down my neck. At least he can teach me something while he's making me look stupid in front of the patient. God, I only just managed to avoid him when the lot of them arrived back. Last thing I need is for him to start tearing into me about my wand work."

"I hope it's not going to happen again soon," he says, wondering if Cresp has been able to find out anything from the Healers that have arrived back.

"Not likely," Cresp says. Sirius waits patiently while Cresp fiddles with one of his stockings – he's one of the Second Year Trainees that Sirius actually respects, and he's fairly good at finding out what's happening around the hospital. "Bit of an aberration, really. Unlucky, because we haven't a proper facility set up in Merseyside, so the patients that couldn't be treated on the spot had to be transferred up to Manchester, and - "

"In Merseyside? Where in Merseyside?"

"At Seacombe," Cresp says. "It'll be in the papers in a few days," he says calmly. "As I was saying, it's unlikely to happen again. If nothing else, Dearborn thinks we can point to this incident to get some funding to set up a facility in Liverpool. Floo and Apparition are all right, but not when you're dealing with people who're injured, eh?"

He wishes he could remember the name of the place that Remus had said he was staying at. It was definitely in Merseyside, and he's fairly sure it was right on the coast because Marlene had been banging on and on about ferries to Ireland. Something to do with explaining to Peter what seasickness really was.

_Seacombe sounds like it'd be on the coast. On the seashore…_

"Dearborn told you all this just now?" The Healer must really be annoyed with Sirius if he dismissed all of Sirius' questions, but told Cresp all of this.

_But he would have had to have told Cresp before he saw me. Maybe he just didn't want to repeat it all._

"Not just the Merseyside hospital, but they're looking to expand here. There've been a few large donations rolling in. I asked him what we'd be doing with the extra space and he went all quiet on me."

_That _isn't new information. It fits with what Regulus was saying earlier. And if Madam Andros, the head of the hospital, is deigning to personally meet with a schoolboy – heir to the House of Black, or not – they must really need the money.

"Going back to this Merseyside thing… Was it a magical mishap?"

"Suppose you could say that. It was Muggles. Someone'd targeted a whole lot of ferries, full to bursting with passengers, and - "

"Ferries? Are you sure about that?"

"Yes," Cresp says, looking puzzled. "Why, what have you heard?"

"Nothing. Sorry. Go on," he says, walking over to the chute and throwing Sinclair's robes into it. "I haven't heard anything. Really," he says, when he turns to find that Cresp is still looking at him.

"Well, that's all I know anyway. I don't know if the injuries were magical or not. But there were thousands of patients that needed to be treated, or resuscitated or obliviated or what have you. Errenford and Carling are camping out in an empty building while they wait for the Ministry to come through with some new money."

"I hope we get it," he says, swinging a clean robe over his shoulders and struggling with the sleeves for a moment. "Do they know who targeted the ferries? You made it sound like it was an attack, rather than an accident."

"They're inclined to blame it on Death Eaters," Cresp says.

"Inclined to? Either someone saw a Dark Mark or they didn't," he says, getting his boots on and checking to make sure he's got all of his belongings out of his locker. He's really hoping that when he signs out, Anita, the mediwitch that manages the shifts – and he's been particularly sweet to her – will tell him he doesn't need to sign back in for another three days.

"That's all I've heard," Cresp says, frowning off into the distance, before shutting his locker with a bang. "Listen. Now that we're finally off duty, a couple of us are heading out for a pint. Want to join us?"

He starts to say no, but then remembers that Remus is being held overnight and, as Dearborn so kindly pointed out, there's nothing Sirius can do for him. Socialising with the other Trainees will give him an opportunity to find out what the others know about what's been happening.

"Yes, all right," he says, slamming his locker shut too. "For a bit."

'For a bit' turns out to be an overstatement. They barely manage a pathetic hour and a half at the pub before crawling off home. All of the Trainees are exhausted – some of them, like him, coming off after a thirty-hour, continuous shift – and none of them are been able to finish their first drinks.

_And none of them knew anymore than Cresp did_, he thinks angrily, letting himself into the flat.

They'd been too worn out to talk, anyway. Instead, they'd slumped tiredly against the sticky tabletops, hoping that the publican wouldn't throw them out for not spending enough. Particularly since it was only last month that the lot of them had been thrown out for drinking too much.

"What's taken you so long?"

He jumps out of his skin at the sound of Remus' voice. "Moony?"

"Over here," Remus says, appearing in the doorway that leads to their bedrooms. "I was discharged an hour ago. Where have you been?"

"I thought they were keeping you overnight," he says stupidly, still not sure to do with the information that Remus is here. Without a shirt on, and wearing those jeans that ride low on his hips. In their flat. Where Sirius can touch him. As much as he wants.

"No, they changed their minds. Said it was enough if I went back on the weekend."

"Back?"

"I'm not saying anymore until you give me a proper 'hello'," Remus says, looking at him expectantly.

"Oh. _Oh_," he says, putting his things down by the front door and racing over to Remus. "Sorry. I wasn't sure if you were alone or if - _mmmph_."

Injured arm or no, Remus quickly has Sirius between himself and the doorframe, kissing him hungrily. He slouches back against the doorframe, letting his knees go slack so that Remus can press closer.

And just like that, the flat feels like home again.

"Missed you so much," Remus whispers, his tone heavy and wanting, his hips pistoning forward.

"_Ah_. I've missed you too," he says, rocking forward slightly as Remus thrusts against him once more. "Come over to the sofa," he says, leaning closer to kiss Remus again. "I'll fall over if we keep this up."

"Sofa," Remus says, looking over at it with glazed eyes. "Yeah." Sirius pushes away from the doorframe so quickly that Remus almost falls over backwards. "_Sirius_."

"Oh, fuck, I'm sorry." They crabwalk over to the sofa. "You first," he says, making sure that Remus' arm is resting comfortably before he scrambles onto Remus' lap. "Is your arm all right?"

"It's fine. Come here," Remus demands, winding his other arm around Sirius' waist and pulling him close. He ends up kneeling on the sofa, with one leg on either side of Remus'. "When did you stop shaving?"

"I didn't stop. I just…"

"Haven't been home, have you? Haven't been looking after yourself properly," Remus says, rubbing his face against Sirius' cheek. "_Mmm_… I think I could get used to you all scratchy. Does make it harder to mark you up, though," Remus says, working his way down Sirius' throat in a series of bites.

"I didn't know you'd be home so soon," he says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. "Was planning on tidying up befo- _fuck_, yes…" he whispers, as Remus lifts up to grind his crotch against Sirius'. "More."

"You're on top, pet," Remus says, smiling against Sirius' neck before sinking his teeth in again. "You can have as much as you want, but you'll have to take it for yourself."

"I will, then," he says, slipping a hand between their bodies to undo Remus' jeans.

Working his fingers into Remus' pants, he pushes the waistband down, hearing Remus gasp as his cock springs free. The sounds that Remus makes, as Sirius wraps his fingers around his prick and gently squeezes, are enough to stir movement in Sirius' own cock, in spite of his tiredness.

"You've been wanking a lot while I've been away, haven't you, pet?"

"What? Am I doing this wrong?"

True, he had to think a bit about it at first, but he's fairly sure he's doing it the way Remus likes it, rather than the way _he_ likes it. It's been more than a week, and in that time, he's only used his fingers on himself.

"No," Remus says slowly, but he puts his hand over Sirius' and adjusts the rhythm slightly. "Actually, I was just wondering what it was that you thought about when you wanked," Remus says, in exactly the same tone of voice he'd use when he wanted to know what Sirius had written for question twenty on their Arithmancy homework.

He smiles at that, though. Remus is usually only this obtusely dirty in what he says when he's too tired to actually do anything.

"I'll tell you all about that once you finish telling me about your arm. I asked first, after all," he points out, gathering the clear fluid that has started to leak out of Remus' cock, and working his hand lower, past Remus' balls, to tease his hole. With his other hand, he resumes stroking Remus' cock while rubbing his index finger against Remus' entrance, pressing it in slowly. Remus arches off the sofa, slamming straight up into Sirius' groin.

"Easy, Remus," he croons, inching his finger in until he's found the spot he's looking for. "There," he says, moving the pad of his finger over it as lightly as he can. "That's what you need, isn't it?"

"I've needed you all week. The four of them, they're enough to make you want to vomit with the way they carry on in public, and you… There… I couldn't… Sirius…"

"Mmm? Love hearing you say my name like that," he says with a smile, gently tormenting Remus' prostate and alternating that with slow, deliberate swipes over the head of Remus' cock. "What is it that you couldn't do?"

"Have you," Remus pants, tossing his head from side to side.

"I beg your pardon? Have I done what?"

"No, that's not… I couldn't – _ah _– couldn't have you."

"Well, you have me now," he murmurs, resting his head on Remus' shoulder so that Remus' thrashing doesn't jolt his injured arm. "What do you need, Remus?"

"Your mouth. Please…"

It's not often he can reduce Remus to addled babbling like this since Remus almost always takes charge, and will usually ensure that Sirius has come at least twice before he does anything about his own needs. _What is it that Dearborn gave you for the pain_, he wonders. Whatever it is, it's made Remus vague and groggy.

Slowly, carefully, he disengages his hands, raining kisses onto Remus' face as he does so. Lifting himself off Remus' legs, he steps off the sofa to kneel on the floor, bending forward and guiding Remus' cock to his lips.

"Oh, God, fucking… _yessssss…_"

By the time he starts using his teeth, Remus is swearing and moaning and calling his name repeatedly. And when he presses the heel of his hand up behind Remus' sac, Remus comes completely undone, shaking and sobbing and spurting into his mouth. He has just enough warning to take Remus in as far as possible so that he can come down Sirius' throat.

"You… _Fuck_," Remus says absently, as Sirius pulls away.

Once again, he casts the mild scourgifying charm, applying it both to Remus' groin and to his own hands. Looking up at Remus and waiting until he is certain that Remus is looking at him, he presses one last kiss to Remus' cock, before tucking it back into place and redoing the fastenings on Remus' jeans.

"Welcome home," he says quietly, climbing back onto Remus' lap, combing his fingers through Remus' sweaty hair and kissing his face.

"_Mmm_," Remus says, holding him in place with his good arm. "Right here, between your legs," Remus says, moulding one hand along Sirius' arse and urging him closer. "This is where home is," Remus finishes in a whisper.

"Yeah," he whispers back, letting Remus settle him. "It's the not the same when you're not here."

"No," Remus agrees. "But when we're bonded, I'll have you with me wherever I go."

"Yeah," he says, closing his eyes. "No matter how far apart we are, you'll always be here," he says, taking Remus' hand and placing it over his heart.

"Have you found a spell that will work?"

"There are a few. We can talk about it later. For now, you need to answer _my_ question. How's your arm?" he asks, giving Remus another kiss and then returning his head to Remus' shoulder. "Want to tell me about it?"

"I don't remember anything, Sirius. I'm sorry."

"Ssh, it's all right," he murmurs, starting to rock himself against Remus' body. "There's nothing you need be sorry about. Dearborn wants to see you again on Saturday, you said?"

"Mmm," Remus says, turning to face him. "He took copies of my memories of that night, but because I was so drunk, nothing is all that clear, and - "

"You were – Why were you so drunk, Remus? That's not like you," he says worriedly, sitting up straight and taking Remus' face in his hands, staring into his eyes.

"There was nothing else to do, Sirius," Remus whispers wretchedly. "It was an absolutely miserable holiday. It rained the whole time, and they all had one another and I didn't have anybody."

Remus actually sounds near tears, much to Sirius' alarm. He knows how sensitive Remus is to being excluded from anything, or how personally Remus takes it when he's left out even just inadvertently. Eight days trapped in a cabin with two amorous couples would have been unbearable for Remus.

"I know we agreed that I should still go ahead when it turned out you wouldn't be able to come," Remus says, "but…" They'd thought it made sense because all of them really needed a holiday, and besides, they'd already paid the deposit for their room and wouldn't be able to get it back. "I should have just stayed here with you."

"You could have given me the Apparition coordinates," he says gently, still playing with Remus' hair and occasionally bending forward to drop a kiss onto Remus' face. "Or you could have come back yourself."

"I thought about it," Remus whispers, "but whenever I said anything about coming back, they'd all start being really nice to me. Or Lily would say something about going out somewhere so I could find myself a nice girl. And I'd say I didn't want to do that…" Remus says, pausing for a moment to kiss Sirius on the mouth, sucking his lower lip into his mouth and biting it hard.

"Yeah," he says, slightly dazedly.

"So then Wormtail would say that if I was going to be grumpy, there was no point going out, and then they'd all go back to snogging, and I'd go back to trying not to scream. Fuck. I wish I had come back. Even if you were at work all the time, I could have been here and made sure you were taking care of yourself. And while you were out, well… It still would have been better than - "

"Where was it you were staying, exactly?" He wishes he'd paid more attention to that sort of thing before they all left, but he's so used to letting Remus organise things for the both of them that it wasn't until after they'd all gone that it occurred to him to wonder where they were staying. "There must have been something on."

"This tiny little village on the coast," Remus says, yawning. "Look, I brought you back something." He doesn't hear Remus say _accio_, but something zips over his head and smacks into Remus' palm. "It's a snow globe. See? There's a few buildings to make it look like the Seacombe foreshore, and the whole thing's filled with water and these little white – here, I'll show you." Remus shakes the thing up and down, and a flurry of little, white specks swirl around the facsimile town inside the glass dome.

"I heard there was some sort of disturbance up in Seacombe," he says quietly. While his venture to the pub hadn't told him anything he didn't already know, it did demonstrate that he was the last to find out. Most of the other Trainees had known since yesterday or the day before.

"Was there? What sort of disturbance?"

"I'm not…" He cuts off, surprised that Remus doesn't know anything about it. "Something really disastrous. St Mungo's is going to set up a hospital in Liverpool because of it. You didn't see anything?"

"It was raining a lot, Sirius. And I was very drunk. Was it a magical mishap?"

"I don't know. No one will tell me anything," he says softly, looking straight at Remus as he says it.

"Sirius, I'm not – I don't know anything to not tell you!"

"I didn't mean it like that," he says mildly, annoyed with himself for handling this so clumsily. "Just… I thought you might have seen something since you were there."

_Particularly since you said it was such a tiny, little village. A Death Eater attack, the size of which required nearly every single Healer and Trainee Healer… You'd think you would have noticed something in all that…_

"Sorry. I was worried, Remus. You and James and all the rest go and stay at Seacombe, and then I hear that that's the same place where this…epidemic is that all of the Healers got sent to, and that it was so bad they had the likes of _me _treating patients on a regular basis, and you're _injured_, Remus, and you don't remember how it happened, and… Are the others all right?"

"They're fine, Sirius. This," Remus says, gesturing to his arm, "happened indoors, all right? We weren't anywhere near the ferries."

He looks up sharply at that. "I didn't say anything about ferries."

"No, but Dearborn asked me. I didn't know what he was getting at then, but I do now."

He's about to press further, wanting to know why Remus said that he didn't know anything about an attack in Seacombe when Dearborn had already questioned him. Then he remembers that Remus has taken something for the pain in his arm, and probably won't be thinking clearly.

"I was worried about you," he says, running a hand through Remus' hair.

"I wrote to you nearly everyday, Sirius. Don't you think I would have said something if something had happened?"

"I was _worried_," he says again, continuing to play with Remus' hair. It's just been washed and has that velvety feel that damp hair gets when it's drying. "And your letters stopped a few days ago, and…"

"Yes, I can see," Remus says, smiling at him and turning his head so he can kiss Sirius' fingers. "So worried that you came home an hour after I did."

"I thought you were going to stay overnight for - "

"I know, I know," Remus laughs. "Still. Where were you? Suzette told us you'd already left when I asked her."

"Haven't I told you not to listen to anything she says, Remus?"

"Where were you?" Remus asks, his tone insistent in spite of his smile.

"I stopped off for a drink with some of the others. I wasn't going to stay long. Just, they seemed to know more about what had happened up north than I did and…"

"You were worried," Remus murmurs sleepily.

"Yes," he says shortly, standing up. "You're just about out as it is. Let's get you into bed, hmm?"

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed," Remus says, allowing Sirius to help him up.

"I was going to make it up properly before you came back. Besides. You never said I wasn't to."

"No," Remus says, sounding peculiarly subdued. "_Why _did you sleep in my bed?"

He's a little startled by the question, and isn't quite sure how to respond.

_Because the sheets still smelled like you. Because I didn't want to be alone in my bed and if I was in yours, I could pretend you'd be coming to join me any minute. Because you were gone and I wanted something of yours next to my skin._

"Same reason you were wearing my shirt," is what he settles on, smiling so that Remus won't think he's annoyed. "You don't mind, do you?" Remus stares at him without saying anything. "Remus?"

"I love you."

_I love you too, but… What? _"What did Dearborn give you?"

"Fuck off, I'm not delirious. Stop feeling my forehead!"

"You didn't answer my question," he says, helping Remus sit on the side of the bed while he removes his jeans.

"You owe me an answer for mine, still."

"What was that?"

"What you thought about when you wanked," Remus says, with an echo of the smile he was wearing when he asked the same question earlier. Remus swings his legs onto the bed, lowering his head onto the pillow and staring at Sirius as he brings the blanket over his shoulder. "Best you call it to mind now. You might need it shortly."

"Are you saying you'd leave me to attend to myself, Remus? After I took care of you so nicely?" He's not really upset – Remus looks totally worn out, and the sooner he goes off to sleep, the better.

"Maybe if you'd said you loved me," Remus replies, his haughty tone impeded by his yawn.

"Do you really need me to tell you?" he asks, casting a freshening charm on the sheets.

"I'm going to tell you every day," Remus says, snuggling into the bedding and then crying out when he rolls onto his injured arm. "_Ow_. Fuck! And that's the side I sleep on too."

"Can you sleep on your back?" he asks, all teasing forgotten as he rushes over to Remus, helping him sit up. Remus' face is white with shock, his forehead breaking out into a sweat. "You _are _feverish! Whatever it was he gave you… It's worn off, hasn't it? Remus? Remus! Please say something to me."

"Can't sleep on my back," Remus mumbles, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"_Accio _Trainee-kit!" The small, white case hurtles through the doorway and hovers within easy reach. "Do you remember what it was he gave you? What colour was it?"

"I didn't see… It was a tablet. But it was chewy, like toffee… He put it in my hand and I put it in my mouth straight away. I – oh, _God _\- Why does it hurt more now? If it's only worn off, why does my arm hurt _more _now?"

"Chewy? Sounds like hellebore extract. Was it green?"

"No… Purpley-blue."

"Purpley… Not valerian? Oh, here, let me undo the bandages on- "

"No, you mustn't!"

"It's all right, Remus, I'll replace the bandages once I've - "

"No, Sirius, you can't," Remus pants, his eyes closed and his whole body shaking. Because of his monthly transformations, Remus has a ridiculously high tolerance level for pain. For him to be showing it so openly… "Dearborn told me to say that you weren't to."

"He's only saying that because he thinks I'm being nosey. I'm not doing this out of curiosity, Remus, I'm - "

"I know, but _don't_," Remus says, groaning. "I don't know if that's why he said it, but please, _please_…"

"All right. All right," he says again, trying to calm himself down. "Hold still, all right?" Rummaging through his kit, he finds his own set of healing straps – pale blue rather than white, to denote that he's only a Trainee. And the rod is silver, rather than copper. _Silver… _"I need you to be very still. The rod's silver."

Remus sucks in a breath through his teeth and watches him warily. "It doesn't matter what it's made of, as long as it doesn't touch the wound."

"I know," he says, kissing Remus on the forehead and gesturing for him to sit back against the headboard. Despite what all the books say, werewolves can touch silver. However, if silver somehow gets into a werewolf's blood, it can stop his heart. "I want you to be comfortable first. You may have to sleep sitting up tonight."

"_Fine_," Remus moans, twisting in pain.

"Do you want to go to St Mungo's right now?"

Remus shakes his head. "They'll want to keep me overnight. I want to stay here with you."

"But Remus, if you're - "

"Please. There must be something you can do," Remus says, looking at him desperately.

"I'm going to give you something for the shock," he says, measuring out a single dose of Calming Draught and then dropping it onto Remus' tongue. "Lie back, Remus," he urges, gently pushing Remus back onto the pillows that he's piled up at the head of the bed. "Better now?"

"Mmm," Remus says, the draught having taken effect almost at once.

Remus responds to potions much faster than anybody else Sirius knows, but the effect also wears off a lot faster than it should. Potions that should last a day or more tend to stop working on Remus within a few hours.

"Let me try another one," he says. "Just to be sure. All right. That should last you until the – no, I can't kiss you now," he says, dodging Remus' mouth. "_I _don't need calming. Listen. I need you to be very still while I do this," he says, picking up the straps. "I don't even want to touch the bandages with the same hand I've used to touch the rod."

He sets the straps against Remus' arm, winding them into place and knotting the tops so that he can work the rod through. Grabbing one of the polishing cloths in the kit, he wraps it around the silver rod before picking it up and working it through the straps. Activating the charm to levitate the rod, he lets go carefully as the apparatus rises above Remus' head, keeping the rod well away from him.

"Why does it hurt more now?" Remus asks. "I mean, not _now_, but just before. And what happens if the essence wears off?"

_You'll scream, but I'll wake up and give you some more._

"Your arm will be all right as long as you don't jar it," he says reassuringly. "I'll take you to St Mungo's tomorrow to get it checked out. Dearborn set it to heal, bound it, and gave you something for the pain while he did it. The tablet wore off, but that was all right because your arm was all wrapped up. Only just now - "

"I bumped it out of alignment," Remus says, sounding miserable.

"I can check it for you, if you don't want to go to the hospital again tom- "

"He said you weren't to. I'm sorry. I just… Thanks for stopping the pain. I'm sorry," Remus says once more.

"Don't be," he says mildly. "It's not your fault," he adds, looking away as he packs the rest of his kit away, and setting the Calming Draught within easy reach in case they need it during the night. "Think you can sleep like this?" In all truth, Remus looks comfortable enough, except that his injured arm is fully extended to his left. "The straps will keep your arm from cramping or falling asleep. Remus?"

"You still haven't answered my question from before," Remus says, trying to pull up the covers with his good arm and giving up impatiently when Sirius takes over.

"About wanking?" he says, smiling and ensuring that Remus has enough blanket. Unfastening his robes, he looks over to Remus and asks, "What is it that you wanted to know?"

"What you thought about when you did it," Remus says, settling back onto the pillows and watching him avidly.

"I'm not going to do it now," he says, letting his robe fall to the floor and crawling under the covers to lie near Remus. "Not when you're tied up like that and unable to touch me."

"You know for some couples, that's part of the appeal," Remus says, managing a tired smile. "No? Prude," he says with a laugh, turning his head to kiss Sirius lingeringly on the mouth.

"I'll give you a show tomorrow. Promise," he says, stroking Remus' hair away from his face before settling down and resting his head in Remus' lap. "And I won't tie you up. I'll do exactly what you do to me."

"Leave me free to touch you, but stop the show if I do? Sadist," Remus says fondly, resting his hand along Sirius' face and tracing Sirius' lips with his thumb. "Where ever do you get these ideas from, I wonder?" Remus whispers. "I didn't mean you had to do it now. I just wanted you to answer my question."

"You wrote to me almost everyday," he says, catching Remus' hand in his own and twining their fingers together. "What do you think I was using for inspiration?"

Remus' face bursts into a smile, and his fingers tighten in Sirius' hand. "My voice?" Remus asks quietly.

"Yeah," he says, adjusting the covers so that he's properly under them.

"I heard that there are charms you can use to bind two people together so that one of them can put their thoughts in the other's head," Remus says wistfully, tugging the covers about with his free hand until he's comfortable.

"Not quite," he says, yawning. "There're charms that give you telepathic access, though."

"What else?"

"There's one," he says sleepily, closing his eyes. "It would put your heart in my body, and mine in yours."

"What use is that?" Remus asks, sounding doubtful.

"Well. You could use it to transfer a healthy heart from a sick body into a healthy body with a sick heart."

"You spent the whole time up to your eyeballs in medical texts, didn't you? You haven't done any proper research at all, and you're trying to cover up for it by - "

"No, that's not true," he says mildly, making a fist and stroking his knuckles along Remus' thigh. "And my medical texts aren't useless. Watch this."

"What am I – Oh," Remus says, as Sirius wordlessly casts the _cuore_ _sano _charm. "_Oh. _I can hear… Is that your heartbeat or mine?"

"Mine," he says softly.

"Can you hear mine?" Remus asks.

He casts the charm again, this time for himself. "Yeah." Remus' pulse is racing, but that's normal for a werewolf. Remus' heart beats four for each of Sirius' three.

Neither of them say anything for the longest time, lying curled together in the dark, the rushing thrum of Remus' heartbeat the only sound in the entire flat. Remus tightens his grip around Sirius' fingers.

"Listen, is this all right? You'll be able to sleep with me here, won't you?"

"I don't think I'd be able to sleep without you there," Remus says.

If he wasn't so tired, and Remus weren't so injured, he'd be sorely tempted to start something. Instead, he turns onto his side, curling into a ball and wordlessly casting _nox_ on the lights.

"Love you so much," he says, partly because he _isn't _prepared to start anything now, but mostly because he just wants Remus to know it.

"I know you do," Remus whispers back.

He falls asleep that way, with his head in Remus' lap, with Remus' fingers wrapped around his own, and with Remus' heartbeat in his ears.


	2. Part 1

I haven't addressed this, in case it's intercepted.

I just thought you ought to know that he's started asking questions. It's frightening the way he's able to put things together. You of all people should know that he isn't stupid.

He already knows where the attack took place, and he's going to get suspicious if I keep pretending that I don't know anything about what happened there.

You'd better come over. We need to come up with a better story.

R.J.L.


	3. Part 2

_Day Nine — morning_

He's alone and in his own bed when he wakes up. _I didn't just dream that Remus came back, did I? _It's an effort to crawl out from under the covers. As tempted as he is to stay in bed, he wants to check on whether or not Remus actually did come home last night.

"Awake at last, are we?"

He's rubbing his face tiredly as he wanders into the front room, to be greeted by James, sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table and balancing a plate of breakfast fry-up on his lap.

"Pardon?" he manages, clutching at the doorframe for balance.

"You'll want to put some clothes on, Padfoot. Lily's gone back to her place to get milk, but she'll be back any minute."

"No, Prongs. _You _want me to put some clothes on so that your girlfriend doesn't spend the rest of the morning ogling me."

"Please yourself," James says, turning back to his breakfast.

He's annoyed at James' cheerfulness. Partly because he's only just woken up, partly because James and Lily seem to have invited themselves over for breakfast when he wants some time alone with his boyfriend, but mostly because the two of them made Remus miserable over the last week, and didn't do anything about it when Remus injured –

"Moony, how's your arm?" he bellows, in the direction of the kitchen.

Remus sticks his head through the kitchen door, looking slightly bemused that Sirius is shouting at him.

"What was that, Padfoot?"

Muttering under his breath, he goes over to the kitchen, where Remus has a whole series of fry pans going over the fire, all of them crackling away merrily.

"Morning," Remus says, pulling him close and kissing him. "My arm's much better. I went to St Mungo's this morning and saw your Healer Dearborn again. He's redone the arm, see? He also asked me to pass this onto you," Remus says, gesturing towards the scroll of parchment that is sticking out of a pocket.

"Ta," he says, taking it and clutching it in one hand. "What's Prongs doing here?"

"Said it was no fun without me, so he and Lily cut the trip short," Remus smiles.

"No fun without you? I beg your pardon? That's _lunatic_! Don't look at me like that – you said yourself that they all but ignored you the whole time."

"I know. This is what I've had to put up with. I think the girls feel guilty if I'm left out, and…"

"And now they've invited themselves 'round for breakfast? You're injured! You shouldn't be frying up breakfast for four."

"I'm all right, Sirius. Really. It's a bit awkward, but I'm not in any pain. Go and talk to Prongs. I can manage."

"Oh… _fine_," he says, knowing better than to argue.

"And Sirius?"

"Mmm?"

"Please put some clothes on first."

He summons a robe without turning around, shrugging it over his shoulders and fastening it loosely, before going back out to the front room.

"Hello, Sirius," Lily says as she enters.

"Morning. What are you doing back from your holiday so early?"

"Wanted to see how Remus was doing," Lily says, shutting the door behind her and coming over to greet him with a kiss to the cheek.

"Sit down, both of you," Remus says, entering from the kitchen and with a series of levitated plates following behind him.

"Thanks, Moony" he says, taking one of the plates. "So, how long are you back for? Is it just for the morning?" he asks James.

"What do you mean?" James asks.

"I'm assuming you'll be going back for the last week of your holiday," he says, sticking a fork into his fried egg and smiling happily as the yellow runs.

Try as he might, he still hasn't been able to cook eggs so that the white is solid but the yellow stays runny. Another reason that he's glad to have Remus back.

"No, holiday's over. Not the same without Moony," James says, managing to sound sincere. "Or you, for that matter," he adds, addressing Sirius. "Wormtail and Marlene don't seem to do anything other than snog."

"Yeah, from what Moony tells me, Seacombe sounds like a bit of a dud," he says, grinning at James' complete lack of self-awareness.

"Seacombe?"

"You did leave the boarding house occasionally, didn't you?" he asks, smiling to show that he's teasing. "Although from the looks of it, I'm not sure you did. If it's possible, the three of you actually look paler than you did before you left."

"But we haven't been to Seacombe," Lily says, looking just as confused as James sounded.

"Haven't we?" Remus asks, sounding amused. "What about this, then?" he asks, picking up the souvenir he bought Sirius and waving it in James' direction.

"Well, we stopped off there," James says, "but only for a few hours. We Floo'd into The Dog and Sausage at Seacombe, because the line to Liverpool was blocked, and then we portkeyed to the hostel."

"I thought we Floo'd to Seacombe and then portkeyed to the hostel," Remus says vaguely, shaking the globe again.

"We did. But the hostel was in Liverpool, not Seacombe."

"Where did you buy that, then?" he asks Remus, reaching a hand out for it.

"In Seacombe, of course," Remus says, looking embarrassed. "On the first day," he adds, handing it over.

"Well, that explains why you didn't see anything odd," he says, waving the globe for emphasis.

"Anything odd? There's plenty to see that's odd out in Liverpool," James says.

"That's not what I mean. You'll read all about it in the Prophet any day now," he says. "There was some sort of incident with the ferries in Seacombe."

"What sort of incident?" Lily asks, staring down at her plate. Despite this being one of Remus' best breakfasts yet, she's moving her food around without actually eating any of it.

"I heard it was an attack on a lot of ferries full of Muggles," he says, realising that he can't remember all of the details.

"A bomb?" Lily asks, leaning forward and frowning.

"No, not a bomb. Some people seem to think it was a Death Eater attack, but there's been nothing about it in the Prophet. That's why I was stuck here. Because all of the real Healers and their Trainees had to get up to Merseyside to treat people and obliviate them, and so on."

"But if that's the same thing that kept you stuck here, then it would have to have happened before we left," James points out. "You hadn't even come home from that thirty-hour shift when we decided not to wait for you any longer."

"Was it really Death Eaters?" Lily asks.

"Nobody knows," Remus says, struggling to balance his plate with his injured arm, now that the levitation charm has worn off. "Well, I'm sure _somebody _must know, but nobody's announced anything official."

"Ferry loads of _Muggles_. Who else would do such a thing, if not Death Eaters?" Lily asks, setting her still-full plate down. James spears some bacon off it without her noticing.

"Suppose we'll know why when we find out who did it," he says. "I wouldn't worry about it. I hope the holiday up until now was worth it," he says lightly, layering his eggs and his bacon onto his toast and folding it into a sandwich.

"It wasn't bad. There wasn't a lot to do, though," James says, looking hopefully at Lily's plate again. "Wormtail and Marlene are staying on, though."

"Said it would be a novelty to have the place to themselves," Lily says, smiling. "Which means that you and I will have _our _place to ourselves, if you want to stay over for a bit." She and Marlene share a flat in Londonnot far from Remus and himself. James and Peter, on the other hand, still live with their respective parents.

"There's no risk that they might come early?" he teases.

"Not a chance," Lily says, not taking her eyes off James. "Peter said it took all of his begging to get two weeks' leave as it is. If there's a story about to break, he's not going to want to come back just in time for them to have him to start writing up all of the eyewitness accounts."

"I don't know how the two of them are still together," Remus says with a fond smile. "An Auror cadet and a reporter… Sounds like a recipe for disaster."

"Works fine because Auror cadets don't get told anything worth knowing," James says with a wink.

"I'll tell Marlene you said that, James," Lily says dryly, before looking down at her plate.

"I won't be going straight back to work either," James says. "It's close to impossible getting leave right at the start of school holidays." James works in a Quidditch accessories shop in Taunton. They're almost always overrun with school kids wanting the best and the newest of everything once school is over for the year. Up until this summer, James had _been_ one of those kids.

"I've got some time off," he says, remembering that Anita had said he wasn't required to sign back on for a few days. "I could take your room in Liverpool. Have a bit of a holiday myself."

"What, and leave me here on my own?" Remus asks, affronted.

"It's no more than you did for me," he points out, grinning. He doesn't really intend to go anywhere without Remus, and Remus already knows as much.

"I didn't leave you here with an injured arm!"

"Speaking of which," he says, straightening himself up and summoning all of their dirty plates into a single stack, "do either of you know how Moony hurt his arm?" There's no reply. "Did either of you actually see it?" There are blushes all around. "He was injured for – two days, did you say? For two days before coming to get treatment, and neither of you saw anything?"

"I told you," Remus says, sending the plates back to the kitchen with a wave of his wand. "I didn't want to make a fuss. And I wasn't the only one drinking. Don't take that tone, Padfoot. It isn't anybody's fault."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Lily says, clutching at her middle.

"Breakfast wasn't that bad, was it?" Remus asks, looking concerned.

"Lily, if you want something for the nausea, I could always - " he starts to offer, before Lily races out of the front room. "Back in a moment," he tells James and Remus.

He goes into his room – since the others don't know that he and Remus are together, they maintain the fiction of separate rooms – and finds his Trainee kit, where Remus has neatly set it next to his slippers.

"Lily," he calls, finding the dark red phial filled with gingerroot elixir, "if you want, you can have - "

"I'll be all right, Sirius. I don't need anything."

"Of course you don't," he says, following her into the bathroom. Fortunately, Remus had the foresight to clean it before their visitors arrived. "Even if it's just what we're talking about that's making you nauseated, you should - "

"Really, Sirius. I don't need anything. I'll be all right."

"Yes, you will be, but you're not now," he says, eyeing her worriedly. "For someone who's been on a holiday at the sea, you're still looking really pale, and - "

"She said she was fine, Padfoot. Leave her alone," James says from behind him.

"I want to go home," Lily says, looking up at James' reflection in the mirror and wiping her mouth at the sink.

"I wasn't - " he starts to say, and then stops, because he sounds so defensive. _For fuck's sake, it's not as though I was hexing her, or anything._

"Now, James?" Lily says insistently.

"At least take this," he says, proffering the phial. She takes it and thanks him with a smile before walking out the door. "It'll help," he calls after her, nettled that he needs to add that.

"Thanks, Padfoot," James says, giving him a sheepish smile. "So, you actually have some time off, now?"

"Only a couple of days," he says, remembering that he still hasn't opened the letter Remus brought for him from Dearborn. He hopes it isn't a note requiring him to come back sooner.

"I thought you got two weeks," James says, washing his hands in the sink.

"No, I – Why would you think I had two weeks?" he asks, puzzled at the comment.

James looks at him oddly, before saying, "Because you weren't doing overtime as a Trainee. You were doing overtime as a Healer. They owe you more than just those hours back."

"Fat chance," he laughs, elbowing James out of the way so that he can wash his own hands. "Not when all of the seniors are shagged out from dealing with whatever it was that happened. I take it there's no point asking you anything about it? Did you happen to read anything in the papers? It _did _happen just around the corner from you. Surely the Muggle papers mentioned something?"

"The papers? Don't recall, really. Didn't really read the papers."

"Why am I not surprised? Honestly, Prongs. What are you doing spending all that money on a holiday away just so you can carry on like a pair of teenagers?"

"We still _are _a pair of teenagers," James points out, checking his hair in the mirror. "And it's our last year before we turn twenty."

"Yeah, but Prongs… What did you do while you were up there? Remus looked liked he was ready to lie down and die when he got back, and not just because he was injured. Prongs? Are you listening to - " He gives up, knowing that it's hopeless. "I'll just leave you alone with your reflection, shall I?" he asks, as James frowns at a particularly stubborn lock of hair.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking. Even if you've only got a little bit of time off, it would be nice to see you sometime."

"All right. What about later today?"

"Can't. Lily wants us to visit her parents."

"Tomorrow, then?"

James looks over to him curiously, before going back to his hair. "Not like you to have a diary so empty."

"Well, up until last night, I thought I'd still be working," he says, wondering what on earth is the matter with James. "Look, you were the one that suggested catching up. Why don't you let me know what time suits you?"

"I'll have to check with Lily first," James says doubtfully, still eyeing the mirror.

It is an effort not to swear. He has to dance around the issue of him and Remus so carefully. He could never say he's not able to do something because he and Remus are visiting Remus' mother, or that he can't do something until he checks with Remus first. James would just laugh and tell him that it was only Remus and that Remus wouldn't mind.

Remus, on the other hand, minds terribly. The number of arguments that he and Remus have had about it doesn't even bear thinking about.

And to have James first of all suggest that they should catch up, and then be unwilling to commit to anything because of his stupid girlfriend — who he's already spent the last week snogging the tonsils off to the point where he wouldn't have noticed a _reducto _cast on the hostel they were staying at…

Taking a deep breath, he makes himself smile, and says, "You do that, then," before rejoining the others.

"…brothers after all, and you can't tell me that deep down - "

He stops, just outside the doorway and out of the view of the others, at the sound of Lily' voice.

"I can't prove it, no. But Sirius is nothing like his brother," Remus says. "And you of all people should know better, Lily. How much do you have in common with your sister?"

"I don't look anything like her!"

"All right, so they look the same, but Sirius - "

"It's more than that, Remus. I love Sirius as much as you and James do, but you have to admit that he has the same snotty, superior manner that his brother does, and - "

"Yes, he does, but - "

"Padfoot?" James calls out loudly.

Fortunately, he's not standing right in the doorframe, so the others won't see that he's been there, listening to them. Moving a few steps back along the hall, he yells back, "What is it?"

"Where have you put – You know. The stuff. For - "

"Hang on," he says, setting off towards the bathroom again. As tempting as it is to just shout that it should be in the last draw, he doesn't want James accidentally coming across anything he shouldn't. "Just there, you blind bastard," he says, pointing to the edge of the sink, the jar of Cassandra Casey's Curiously Curly Curling Cream still where he left it. "Sorry. There's only a bit left."

"I won't use all of it," James says, taking the jar from his hand and squinting into it.

"You can use as much as you like, Prongs," he says absently, mentally adding it to his shopping list.

"Do you mean it? You really are the best friend in the world," James says, forgetting all about the jar and flinging his arms around Sirius.

"That's hardly new information," he says lightly, wondering what's brought this on. "I take it you haven't unpacked yours, as yet?"

"What? Oh, er… No. My bags are at Lily's place. Look, Padfoot, we can still - "

"Of course," he says, knowing what James is asking. "Check with Lily, then get back to me with a time. It's all right."

"Thanks, Padfoot. I know it's a right pain, but you'll see. I can be equally patient if you ever need to do the same to me."

"James?" Lily appears at the door. James jumps away from him at the sound of her voice.

"Lily - "

"I _really _want to go home."

"Okay," James says, running his fingers through his hair and setting the empty jar of cream onto the sink. "Sorry, Padfoot. I'll Floo later on, about - "

"Yeah. Make sure that you do," he says, smiling. "Nice seeing you Lily. Hope you're feeling better soon," he says politely, wondering why she was talking to Remus about Regulus.

"Take care, Sirius," she says, giving him a quick hug. "And thanks for the gingerroot!"

_What on earth is the matter with her? Why was she comparing me to - Fuck, even **Remus** thinks I'm snotty_, he thinks to himself, sitting on the edge of the bath and slumping back against the tiled wall.

Fishing about in his pocket, he locates the note from Dearborn that Remus brought back and snaps the seal. Dearborn starts out by telling him he did well to treat Remus the way he did last night, and then goes on to say that…

"Prongs!" he calls, jumping to his feet and running to the front room. Only Remus is there. "Where is he?"

"Where is who?"

"Where's _James_?" he says impatiently, flapping the letter at Remus.

"At Lily's, I assume. You– Where are you going?"

He ignores Remus and goes into the kitchen, snatching the Floo powder off the mantle.

"Sirius? What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I - " The lid on the tin is jammed tight, and when he forces it, bright green Floo powder goes everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except into the flames. "_Fuck!_" he snarls, flinging the tin away in disgust. "Why is everything going - "

"You heard us talking about you," Remus says, coming over to him and looking worried. "Sirius - "

"It's not that. I mean, it's not just that. Do you know what's in this letter?" he asks, waving it at Remus again.

"No," Remus says at once. "Why? What's Dearborn said?"

"He says I don't need to come back for two weeks. And Prongs said the same thing just before, when I said I had a few days off. He wanted to know – And I asked him why he thought I'd get two weeks, and… How could he have known?"

"Because I told him," Remus says. "Before you were up."

"You_ just said _you didn't know what was in this letter," he shouts.

"Sirius, calm down," Remus says. "Dearborn told me that you were to have that time off, but he didn't tell me he'd put it in the letter."

He stares at Remus in disbelief, unable to comprehend what's happening.

_You were in Seacombe. Except you weren't. And there's some problem with Lily that nobody wants to tell me about. Then James says we should get together, but can't give me a time, and… Why were you talking about my brother?_

"Lily mentioned him," Remus says, making Sirius realise that he said some of that out loud. "She's absolutely certain that the incident was Muggle baiting. I asked her if she really believed anybody would do such a thing, and she mentioned your brother."

"My… But… Regulus wouldn't… He wouldn't waste his time on that sort of thing," he says, his mind still trying to make sense out of what he's hearing.

"You don't have to defend him, Sirius. You're not him," Remus tells him firmly. "You were Sorted into Gryffindor, not Slytherin. Your best friend's a Mugglelover, and your lover's a Mudblood. You - "

"You're not a - "

"I've been called it," Remus says. "By your brother, for one thing," Remus adds, waiting for him to comment. "You're not your brother. You're nothing like the rest of your family."

He takes all of this in quietly, but at the last he has to smile. "What, not even in my snotty, superior way?"

Remus smiles back. "She didn't mean it like that."

"I wasn't talking about her. _You _agreed with her," he points out, no longer angry, but not yet willing to let Remus off the hook so easily.

"Sometimes you are," Remus says, pulling him close. "But you don't do it for the same reasons as your family does it. You do it because you're a hundred times cleverer than everyone else," Remus says, starting to nuzzle his throat. "And because you see things that other people don't, and with all of that put together, you're so much _better_ than everybody else. And you know it too," he adds, licking up to Sirius' ear.

"I'm not bett- "

"You are," Remus says, opening Sirius' robes. Even with only one good arm, Remus' fingers manage to race over his body, touching him everywhere.

"Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?"

"I would. I will. From the rooftops, so all of Londoncould hear me. 'Sirius Black is the best man I know and he's _mine_.' That's what I'd say, if you let me."

"Then why did you say I was sno- "

"I _like _you all haughty and proper. Right up until I get my hands on you, pull you off your pedestal and turn you into mush."

Well. He can't argue with that. "Are you - _mmm_… Are you going to do that now?"

"It occurred to me," Remus says, carefully pulling Sirius' robe off his shoulders and baring his back. "But see, I was in the middle of doing the washing up when you came storming in here, and while I've put all of the things on the draining tray, you probably want me to dry them and put them away, and - "

"No," he moans. Remus' fingers have finally found his cock, but the delicious fondling stops as Remus looks over to the sink with clear intent. "No, _don't_…" he manages, now fully aroused. Searching for Remus' hand with his own, he brings it back to where he wants it. "Don't tease me."

"It won't take long," Remus says, laughing wickedly as he resumes his torturous teasing. "Actually, it'll only take twice as long as it usually does, since I've only the one functioning arm. But well worth it, I think, to have everything put away, and - "

"_Don't_," he pleads. "Leave them where they are."

"Don't leave them where they are?"

"No. _Don't _put them away. Leave them where they are," he says, twisting around to face Remus.

He had to be careful with Remus yesterday night because he was injured, and he couldn't demand to be seen to this morning because James and Lily were there, but he's been _aching _for Remus for days now, and the thought of waiting even as little as five minutes more…

"Are you su- "

"_Yes_," he says at once, not having to think about it.

"Eager, aren't you?" Remus laughs, kissing him again.

"Mmm, I am. But that's not why," he says. Taking Remus' hand in his, he leads them out of the kitchen – taking care not to slip on the spilled Floo powder – and towards his bedroom.

"No? Then what… Oh, good idea," Remus says, releasing his hand and waiting as Sirius opens the door to his wardrobe.

Pushing all of the robes that are hanging in it out of his way, he steps inside, fumbling for the catch that releases the false backing, feeling it snick open.

There's another entry just like this from a wardrobe in Remus' room. Since they haven't told their friends about their relationship, they maintain their own separate bedrooms. But this room – which is in between each of their separate rooms, and can only be accessed when both of them are in the flat – is _their _room.

One of the main advantages of this room is that it's warded away from the rest of the flat, so if anybody's looking for them while they're both here, it will seem like there's no-one home. And after everything he's had to put up with from his friends, and from work…

_There's nothing wrong with wanting to vanish. Just for a bit…_

"Can you follow after me? Careful of the drop," he says, helping Remus through. Ensuring that the wardrobe door is closed in his room, he slides the robes back into place and then resets the false backing, snicking it shut.

"We have _got _to come up with an easier way of getting into here," Remus says, raising a hand to his injury.

"You never complained before," he says, flicking his wand at the curtains and sending them rattling to opposite sides of the French doors that open onto the balcony.

"It never used to _hurt _before," Remus points out, helping him open up the glass doors to let the fresh air and sunlight into the room.

He's not bothered by the fact that his robe hangs open down the front or that it's only remaining on his body because it's caught at his elbows, _or_ by the fact that he's only wearing a pair of pants underneath it to protect his modesty. Their room is more powerfully warded than the rest of the flat, and an extremely strong — and frequently reinforced — _imperturbable _on the balcony prevents anybody from being able to see or hear what's happening inside.

"Just think," Remus says, throwing open another door and securing it so that it won't blow shut. "When we're older than Dumbledore and want to - "

"Remus my love, believe me when I say that I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he says, as he ties the left-hand curtains out of the way of the open doors. "But I don't want to think about either of us looking like Dumbledore."

"Most likely, when we're that old, we won't have to hide our room away from everybody else."

"Remus."

"That way, we'd be able to convert one of the bedrooms into a proper spare room, and turn the spare room into a study, instead of using the spare room as both a guest bedroom _and _a study, when it isn't properly either. You have no idea how difficult it is to get any work done when my mum stays with us."

"_Remus_…"

"And instead of having three enormous bedrooms, when we only ever sleep in one at a time anyway, we could have a _proper _study with actual bookshelves, and - "

"Remus?" he says, walking over to Remus and touching him on the shoulder to turn him around.

"Yes?" Remus turns to face him, realising that Sirius hasn't really been listening to him.

"It looked like you'd gone forever," he says. "When I came home and everything was put away. It looked like you were never going to come back."

"Come here," Remus murmurs, raising a hand to Sirius' face and drawing him close.

He doesn't need to tell Remus how horribly alone he felt. He doesn't need to tell Remus how helpless he _feels_, knowing there's nothing he can do about Remus' injury. He doesn't need to tell Remus how much it hurts to be compared to his brother.

"Busy little Healer," Remus says, his voice alive with affection. "So caught up in taking care of everybody else… Haven't taken any time to take care of yourself, have you?" he adds, resting an arm on Sirius' waist, pressing his forehead against Sirius' and watching him carefully. "Do you want me to take care of you?" Remus asks.

He doesn't need to tell Remus any of those things because Remus already _knows_.

"Yeah," he says, closing his eyes as Remus kisses his forehead, and then his eyelids. "Just… For a little while," he says, opening his eyes in time to see Remus smile at him.

"For as long as you want," Remus says, leading him to the bed. Sitting on the bed, Remus pulls him closer, so that he's standing between Remus' legs. "All right?"

"Mmm. Am now," he says. _This _is what he's missed. Having Remus attending to him. Spoiling him. _Loving _him. "Who did your robe up for you?" he asks, undoing the fastenings on Remus' robe as Remus works Sirius' pants off his hips.

"Dearborn," Remus says, smiling at the memory. "I just threw it on over my shoulders and Apparated over to see him. Said that you were out cold and no amount of shouting would rouse you. So then he – No, leave your robe on," Remus says, pulling him close again before alternately biting and kissing his chest. "You laughed… at me… when I said… I was going to… say 'I love you' everyday… But you… need to be reminded, don't you?"

"Remus…"

"Need to be… shown," Remus says, licking over one of the bites he's scattered all over Sirius' body and then blowing on it.

"_Remus…_"

"Played with." _Lick. _"And taken." _Lick._ "And _owned_."

"_Yessssss…_"

"Up on the bed, then, pet. No, not flat on your belly. Lift up. On all fours," Remus says, still wearing that same, warm smile, his gaze intense and hot as he watches Sirius move into position. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll have been loved so thoroughly and so well that you'll never need to be reminded again."

"Fuck, Remus…" Sighing happily, he shivers as Remus lifts his robes up over his hips.

A warm breeze from outside gusts into the room, sending the curtains billowing even within their ties, and filling the room with the heavy smell of oncoming rain. The way Remus has positioned him on the bed, anybody standing on the balcony would be able to see him writhing on the sheets, his arse in the air, and his cock full to bursting with blood.

"That's not to say that I _won't _remind you. Only that you won't need it. Open for me," Remus says, pressing one hand flat against Sirius' thigh and pulling gently as Sirius shifts his legs further apart, making him shiver even more as the now cool breeze blows against his opening. "Oh, yes that's right. So beautiful," Remus murmurs, resuming the kissing and biting, but applying his mouth to Sirius' back, this time.

"_Cold, _Remus…"

"Is that so?" Remus shifts on the bed, moving directly behind him so that he has some protection from the breeze. "Better now?" Remus asks, draping himself over Sirius' back so that he can whisper directly into Sirius' ear, Sirius' robe now bunched up around his shoulders.

"Much," he whispers back, his shivering having nothing to do with the breeze now.

"All for you, pet," Remus croons, his fingers suddenly slick as he plays with Sirius' balls, massaging them thoroughly. "Every single bit of it for you."

"Yes. Fuck me, please…" he moans, as those slick fingers gently circle his hole.

"Anything you want," Remus whispers, inserting two fingers in quick succession.

"_Ah_," he cries out, clawing his fingers into the sheets. To his shock and embarrassment, his eyes are starting to water.

"All right?" Remus asks, placing soothing kisses on Sirius' shoulder blades.

"_Mmm_," he murmurs, burying his face in his arms so that Remus won't think he's crying.

It's not that it hurts, and it's not that Remus is doing anything he doesn't like or hasn't done before or _didn't just ask for_… It's that, ever since they moved in together more than a year ago, the ten days they've just spent apart is the longest he's gone without being fucked. Remus has only just started, and already he feels as though he's been stretched obscenely wide.

"God, I'd forgotten how good you felt," Remus says, by turns scissoring his fingers or rubbing them hard inside Sirius. "Thought about it every night, and quite a bit during the day as well, but fuck me, I somehow managed to forget that my imagination has never been able to hold a candle to the real you."

"Remus… _Remus_, I – oh, fuck…" As if he hadn't cause for embarrassment enough, he's managed to come before they've barely started. He can't even blame it on the friction of the sheets, because his cock isn't touching them. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Remus murmurs, kissing the side of his face, and his neck and his back. "This is all for you, remember?"

"I know, but now I've spoiled it all," he says, annoyed with himself.

"Spoiled it all? What are you talking about? We've got all day. All week, if you want. I certainly don't have any other plans. Sirius, look at… Oh, _Sirius_. What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"What do you mean 'nothing'? You're crying," Remus says worriedly, withdrawing his fingers and curving his hand around Sirius' side reassuringly. "Do you want to stop? You're still bothered by what Lily and I said earlier, aren't you?"

"No," he says truthfully, carefully turning over onto his back so that he can face Remus. Remus makes a soft, worried sound in his throat before bending forward to kiss Sirius, his lips and tongue gentle, and warm, and loving against Sirius' own.

"Tell me," Remus says at last, moving him so that he's not lying in the damp spot on the sheets.

"It's… I'm not _upset_, it's just… You know when you get punched in the nose your eyes start watering? And it's not that it hurts, it's just… It always makes you cry?"

"Sirius Black," Remus says, staring at him incredulously. "I just made you come without once touching your prick. Did I just hear you comparing some of my best work to being punched in the nose?"

"No! It's not that you were hurting me, and I'm not _sad_… It's just… It's been so long, and then… It was completely involuntary," he finishes weakly.

"You fucking bastard!" Remus laughs, sitting back on his heels, picking up one of the pillows and smacking him with it. "I ought to hex you up and down the flat until you earn for my forgiveness."

"Why waste your energy on that when you could be fucking me instead?" he offers, raising his fingers to Remus' cock and stroking it firmly.

"I intend to, but I'll need to think of something to fill my time until I have your full attention once more," Remus says, pinching Sirius' flaccid cock in return. "I think I like you like this best. Seeing you like this and knowing that I'm responsible for you being all worn out," Remus whispers, squeezing Sirius' cock again. "Satiated." Another pinch. "Spent."

"Thoroughly fucked," he whispers back, grinning as Remus' eyes light up, and Remus starts to grind his groin against Sirius' hand.

"Not quite yet, but soon. _Very _soon," Remus purrs, leaning into him and rubbing his nose against Sirius' before kissing him sloppily.

"There's no need to wait."

"No?"

"Not on my account," he says, giving Remus one final, loving stroke before releasing him. "Fuck me. Right now."

Remus smiles at him, urging him to turn over onto his front once more, and whispering, "All you have to do is ask," as he does so.

He doesn't get the benefit of fingers, this time. Instead, Remus enters him slowly, giving him plenty of time to get used to the intrusion. To his mortification, he can feel his eyes starting to water once mores.

"You're crying again," Remus says, when he sniffles.

"I am not!"

"Sit up," Remus says, sitting back on his heels and pulling Sirius back with him, so that Sirius is sitting in Remus' lap, with his legs bracketing Remus'. "You lower yourself when you're ready," Remus murmurs. "In your own ti- Oh, fuck, yes, like that…" Remus groans, as Sirius pushes back onto him deliberately.

Tears or no tears, he's full of Remus' cock and there's nothing in the world he'd rather be.

"Give me your hand – no, your other one," he says, reaching for Remus' left hand with his right, and bringing it around to his middle, ensuring that Remus' injured arm isn't caught between them. "Keep it out of the way," he says, twisting around to kiss Remus, and then raising his hips up slightly before lowering himself again.

"You feel amazing," Remus says, clutching at him tightly with both hands. "I had no idea I'd miss you as much as I did," he continues, placing quick, wet kisses on Sirius' neck and shoulders. "Isn't that odd? I kept telling myself that it was only going to be two weeks. Which is stupid, because quite often, I start to miss you as soon as you leave the house to go to work in the morning."

He closes his eyes, and tips his head back onto Remus' shoulder, listening to Remus, but also concentrating on maintaining their rhythm.

"All I'll be doing is listening to the wireless, or reading the Prophet, and I'll think of something I want to tell you, or something stupid I want to share with you, except you're not there, and… That happens _everyday_. Why did I think I'd be able to last two weeks without you?"

The clouds outside shift and a wide, bright beam of sunlight strikes the bed directly, just inches away from them.

"I want to be bound to you. Forever. God, Sirius, the whole time I've been away and I thought that I would never be able to… Please tell me you found a spell?"

"I've found lots of them," he says.

"Good. Are you able to… " Remus starts to ask, feeling at Sirius' groin with his free hand and finding him aroused. "Oh, God, I love you. Love you so much, Sirius."

"Love you too," he murmurs back, tightening his grip on Remus' hand. He's always found it easier to show that he loves Remus rather than to say it, but it occurs to him that in spite of what Remus said earlier, Sirius isn't the only one who needs reminding.

Remus comes almost as soon as he hears those words, crying out Sirius' name and clawing his fingers into Sirius' skin.

"I want to belong to you forever," he says quietly, as Remus rests his forehead on his shoulder.

"And I to you," Remus says, slowly relaxing his grip.

"Don't," he says, as Remus starts to pull away.

"I – oh. Oh, fuck. Sirius. Sorry," Remus says, thinking that Sirius is telling him off for still leaving him unsatisfied.

"No, not that. Well, yes, that. Keep…_mmm_. But don't pull away."

"Sirius…"

"I like having you there," he whispers, turning his head to press his lips to Remus' cheek. "Love it. Being full of you."

Remus laughs softly, squeezing and stroking him tenderly. "We'll end up stuck to one another forever."

"Yeah," he agrees, kissing Remus' cheek again. "That's the idea, isn't it?"

~*~

_Day Nine — afternoon _

"Did you not receive my note, Sirius?"

He turns from the apothecary counter to face Dearborn . "I did get it. I wanted to thank you for - "

"You didn't come into work on your day off to thank me," Dearborn says curtly, striding forward to meet him.

He wonders what he's done wrong. With the exception of Remus, he seems to be getting on everybody else's nerves, and he can't for the life of him imagine why.

"No," he says coolly, trying to keep a hold on his temper. "I actually came to pick up some more of the tablets that you gave Remus yesterday."

"You could easily brew the potion and tablet it yourself," Dearborn says, snatching the package out of his hands.

"I had a prescription for those, Healer," he says, automatically holding a hand out for the package and struggling to keep his tone civil. "And I could have made my own if I'd known what he'd taken, but I was sent out of the room when he was being treated, and when I asked, he wasn't able to tell me - "

"I thought I told you to not to interfere in - "

"He was in pain, Healer. I asked him what you'd given him so that I could see whether or not I had any of it in my - "

"Yes, all right," Dearborn says, sounding irritated. "In any case, I wouldn't have thought it was too difficult even for a First Year to conclude that he'd been treated with diluted sopohorous and valerian, and - "

"Both of which are ingredients for the Draught of the Living Dead," he says angrily. "And yes, I could have guessed, but as you know, Remus' _condition _means that I have to be careful of any complications or side-effects that arise. Besides which, from your comments yesterday, what he has isn't a common injury, and I don't want to take any chances with my friend's health."

_Mind sleep. That's what he gave Remus… _It's a relatively mild version of the Draught of the Living Dead, and works by identifying the source of pain and deadening all of the nerve endings around it. Pain killers that potent aren't handed out lightly, and for Dearborn to have prescribed a course of six tablets… _Does anybody have any idea what's wrong with Remus' arm? Or are they just treating the symptoms because they can't treat the cause?_

Dearborn taps the fingers of one hand against the small package of tablets, apparently lost in thought.

"Healer, are you unhappy with my performance?" he asks.

"What?" Dearborn looks startled at the question.

"The way I treated Remus. You said in your note that I'd handled it well, but now you seem to be saying…" He really hates to be told he's done something wrong. No, that's blatantly untrue, as McGonagall, Filch and James can attest to. He really hates to be told he's done something wrong after he's gone to so much trouble to do it right. "Was there something I should have done that I didn't?"

It's a while before Dearborn answers. "You're currently on leave, Sirius. I am not obliged to discuss your performance with you."

He feels like he's been punched in the stomach. "I beg your pardon?"

"We can discuss your performance when you return," Dearborn says, looking just as uncomfortable as he himself feels.

"Healer, have I been suspended?"

"No, Sirius. You're on holiday, which you more than earned over the last ten days, and which you had originally applied for anyway. As you _are _on holiday, however, I will remind you that if Remus Lupin's arm gives him any further trouble, he is to be brought to me immediately. You are not to treat him, as you are not on duty."

"I'm sorry, Healer," he says caustically. "I wasn't aware that we were only supposed to treat people when we were on _duty_. I'm fairly certain that there have been off-duty Healers that have acted to keep people from _dying _or being _permanently disfigured _when - "

"Off-duty Healers, _Trainee _Black," Dearborn replies firmly. "And only a First Year one at that. Whatever your ability, whatever your potential, you should not be treating anybody without a full Healer attending, or failing that, a suitably qualified mediwitch. No. I don't want to hear anymore," Dearborn says, when Sirius opens his mouth to argue. "Give these tablets to Mr Lupin, and tell him that if he requires more, he can Floo the order through. I don't want to see you here for another two weeks, is that clear?"

"Yes, Healer," he says quietly, as Dearborn gives him a final glare before walking away.

"What have you done, Black?" Cresp asks him, coming out of the apothecaries' to join him.

"What makes you think I've done anything?" he says, realising that he's just had Dearborn set him down in front of everybody in the apothecaries'. One of the annoying mediwitches that always seem to be hanging around gives an entirely too self-satisfied smirk before resuming her duties.

"Well, I've never seen Dearborn that angry, for one thing."

"What are you doing here?" he asks, tucking the tablets away into one of his pockets. "Weren't you given time off as well?"

"Time off! As if. I'll be lucky if I get my rostered day off next Monday, what with the plans for the new wing."

"They're opening the new wing? Already?"

"Depends on whether or not the funding comes through," Cresp says conspiratorially, walking off to an alcove and gesturing for Sirius to follow him.

"There hasn't been an announcement, has there?"

After getting reacquainted with one another that morning, Remus had gone back to sleep like a contented cat, curled up in the sunlight falling on their bed. Sirius had left him there so he could catch up on back issues of the Prophet. None of them contained anything about what was supposed to have happened in Seacombe. If it wasn't for Remus' injury, he could almost convince himself that the whole last week was nothing more than a particularly unpleasant nightmare.

"Top secret," Cresp says. "Nobody told me. I heard Sinclair speaking to Carling. They want to set up a new wing that's fit out to look like a Muggle hospital. Sinclair's going to head it up, because she's Muggleborn, and she's always taken an interest in complementary medicines."

"It's to treat the victims of Muggle-baiting," he says, not waiting for Cresp's nod. "So it's not just about what happened up north."

"Exactly. They're making arrangements so there's a permanent ward for Muggle patients. They mentioned something about Whitechapel, but I don't see - "

"There's a teaching hospital in Whitechapel. A Muggle one," he clarifies, when Cresp still looks puzzled. "The RoyalLondonHospital." He'd looked into it when he thought he wouldn't be able to work for St Mungo's because he was a Black.

_Might still end up there after all_, he thinks miserably. Cresp – who worked even harder than Sirius over the last week – hasn't been awarded any time off, and the two weeks that he has is starting to seem more and more like a suspension. _They can't **actually** suspend me, because I haven't done anything wrong. But they can come up with ways of keeping me away._

"They'd probably want to set up a link from that hospital to the new wing," he says. "You couldn't ask a Muggle to come to St Mungo's. Their family and friends need to be able to visit them, so they get told that the patient is at the RoyalLondonHospital, and then they step through a door and end up here…"

"That explains that, then," Cresp says, looking thoughtful. "Anyway, they're giving this top priority, but not so you'd know, unless you knew what to look for. So. If not you, then what's got Dearborn all cut up?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," he replies truthfully.

"You must have done _something_," Cresp prods. "Dearborn isn't the sort to get upset about one thing and then take it out on someone else."

He'd forgotten about that.

He can remember being so excited when he found out that Dearborn had taken an interest in him as a Trainee. Most Healers only chose their protégés from the pool of Trainee Healers, but Dearborn had chosen _him_.

Not only was he lucky to be the only protégé assigned to a full Healer, but everybody agreed that Dearborn was one of the nicest ones to work for. He was fair, he took an interest in your work, he wouldn't let anything hold you back if you wanted to try something more challenging, and he was fairly easygoing about time off and punctuality.

"Nothing to say?" Cresp asks, one more time. "Well, it must be important, whatever it is. I'll find out from someone else, even if you won't tell me!" he adds cheerfully, before swinging away.

He gives Cresp an absent-minded goodbye, before letting himself out of the hospital and onto the street. He's dressed in Muggle clothing specifically because St Mungo's fronts onto a Muggle street, and since he's on leave, he doesn't have the clearance to get in through the staff entrance off the back alley.

The creeping sense of dread that he'd had earlier that morning has started to return, in spite of Remus' best efforts to shake him out of it.

He tells himself that he's being ridiculous. He hasn't done anything wrong. Or anything to upset Dearborn, either. Or _anybody _at St Mungo's, for that matter, including the irritating mediwitches.

_Fuck this. I should be getting home anyway. _He doesn't want to leave Remus on his own in the flat for too long.

That, and he really just wants to sit down again. He's _sore _from being fucked so thoroughly after nearly two weeks of no sex at all. And it's not just his arse – it's his thighs, his arms, his hips… all from exerting muscles he hasn't used in Remus' absence.

Being reminded – being marked up – is all very well and good when he can stay at home and smugly bask in the knowledge of Remus' love. Out on the street, it's another matter entirely.

Still, there are things he needs to get done while he's out. He stops by the Mages-Mart on the walk back, putting in an order for dinner for the two of them for that night, as well as all of the other things around the flat he hasn't had time to buy, like bread, eggs, butter, milk and so on. _Oh, and the Curling Cream. Mustn't forget that_, he thinks, scrawling it onto the bottom of the list that the cashier is waiting patiently for. _And Floo powder!_

"It'll be about half an hour," she says, glancing over the list. "I'll have to check with our other store to see if they've any drinking chocolate left."

"That's all right, I'll wait." There's a little café outside the front of the Mages-Mart, which sells Muggle newspapers and magazines as well as the wizarding kind. "I can pay now, though," he offers, reaching for his wallet.

"No, leave it for now, love," she says, handing the list to a black rat that takes it between its teeth and then scampers off. "Let's work out if we've got everything you need first."

"Thanks," he says, checking again to make sure he has Remus' tablets, and then leaving the shop to go to the café.

"_The Times_? It's a bit late in the afternoon for that. We sell out before lunch, most days," the owner tells him.

Not surprising, since they only ever seem to start out with three or four copies. "What about the _Telegraph_?"

"'Fraid not," the owner says apologetically. "All I've got left is _The Sun_."

"Oh, look. It'll have to do," he says, handing over a handful of Knuts for it.

He's not terribly hopeful that he'll find anything relevant in it – not only because Muggle reporters won't know about the incident in Seacombe, but mostly because _The Sun _is more interested in reporting on the lives of singers, actors and other famous Muggles he doesn't know or care about.

He knows from long experience not to open _The Sun _to page three in public. Not that there's nothing important in the first two pages – or for that matter, the front page. You have to really dig around in the middle, just before the editorials, for any sort of credible reporting. And even then, it all has to be taken with a cauldron of salt.

_Who on earth is Stevie Nicks, and why do The Rotters want her to sit on their faces,_ he wonders, as he flips another page absently_. _There's a pot of tea on the way, which he's looking forward to, because there really isn't anything interesting in the paper.

"…just quickly, and we can grab a pie before we head back."

"You already stuffed yourself at Black's. You don't need to eat any - "

"I'll only be two minutes, Lily. If they don't have one in the counter we can - "

"All right, but - "

He starts to look up, and is about to smile and say hello, when he catches James turning away, physically pushing Lily out the door.

"Actually, I'm not that hungry. Why don't we just head back to your place?" James is saying, as he tries to walk out the door.

Sirius is sitting at the first table inside the door, with the paper spread out on across the tabletop. James is short-sighted, but there is no way he can't have seen Sirius. Not at this distance. Not in a way that can be believed.

It takes him a couple of seconds to realise that he's just been snubbed. That his best friend has just tried to pretend that he hasn't seen him.

He stands up quickly, nearly taking out the waiter bringing his tea. "I'm terribly sorry," he says, as the teapot goes tumbling to the ground. Fishing around in his purse, he finds a Sickle and adds it to his payment, to make up for the spill and for the waiter having to clean up after him. "I just realised that there's somewhere else I need to be."

Lily isn't moving out of James' way very quickly. She evidently hasn't gathered that James has changed his mind, and she still seems determined to walk into the café.

"No, James. Get it over and done with now. I'd prefer you ruined your appetite with a pie than with – Oh, hello Sirius!"

"Hi Lily," he says, not bothering to smile.

"Padfoot! I didn't - " James starts to say, not quite brazen enough to say that he hadn't seen Sirius.

"How are your parents, Lily?"

"Fine, I assume," she says, looking startled at the question. "Why, what have you heard?"

"Nothing," he says, after giving James a long look. "Nothing important. Listen, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to be getting home."

He doesn't wait for a response from either of them as he turns on his heel and strides back to the Mages-Mart.

"Padfoot!" James calls, running to catch up to him. "Look, we went to Lily's place, but Lily wasn't feeling well, so I brought her to the hospital and - "

"Yeah. Look, Prongs. I don't care, all right? I honestly don't care what you do anymore. Go and be her devoted boyfriend. When you're ready to be a friend again, let me know."

"Lily hasn't done anything wrong," James says defensively.

It's the last straw.

"Are you deaf as well as blind? I didn't say _she _had done anything wrong. Go and be a couple. Go and play house, or whatever it is you're playing at. You obviously can't be out of her sight for five minutes. It's fine. But don't pretend you want to be friends when you'd clearly much rather - "

"Pretending? I wasn't pretending! She really was sick!" James says.

"Prongs, I just said I didn't care," he says, ringing the bell on the counter and making the cashier come running out from stacking the shelves.

"Your order still isn't - " the cashier starts to say, looking puzzled to see him back already.

"I'm really sorry, but I have somewhere else I need to be," he says, managing to find a smile for her. "Can I settle the payment now, and have you owl the order through when it's complete?"

"Don't _care_?" James says incredulously. "Well, that's charming, that is. It's not as though she's anybody important – only your best friend's girlfriend."

"You didn't see what Remus' arm looked like before it was treated," he hisses, while he waits for the cashier to ring up the total. "There were gouges all down the full length of his upper arm. And it was a day old. Lily gets a fucking stomach upset and you jump to attention, but one of your best friends has a fucking infected, open wound all down his arm and you're too taken with your stupid girlfriend to even notice!

"He came to St Mungo's _by himself _because he didn't want to spoil your fun. I'm amazed you even noticed he'd gone, but of course, you _would_, and then you felt bad for neglecting him, so you had to come around this morning and have breakfast and be pleasant and act as though you were actually concerned for him, and make him feel guilty for calling you away from your holiday. You _know _how he gets."

"That'll be four Galleons, ten Sickles and thirteen Knuts, love."

He hands over five Galleons and tells her to keep the change.

"You're not being reasonable," James says, putting a hand on his arm to turn him around.

"No? All right. Let's make a time to catch up, then. When are you free?"

"Sirius - "

"No, I'm sorry, 'Sirius' isn't a time. What about tomorrow? You could come over for lunch. No? Got plans with Lily?" he says, without giving James an opportunity to answer. "Well, what about the day after? No? Not sure? Have to check with Lily? You're right, it's probably more important that you hang around with her. After all, you only see her everyday, and just came back from one week of being joined at the mouth. I can see why you'd have trouble making time for your best friend, who you haven't seen in a week or properly spent time with in two."

"Look - "

"But _I'm _the one that's being unreasonable? For fuck's _sake_, Prongs! I'm not telling you that you can't see her. You can do what you like. I'll still be here when you remember what friends are for. Go and be with Lily. I don't honestly care. But stop pretending that you want to spend time together and that I'm the one that's being unreasonable"

"Well. All right, then," James says, the colour having drained from his face almost entirely. "I'll…"

"You'll be in touch," he says gently, realising that as annoyed as he is, he really doesn't want an argument. And that he's worried about hurting James. _He's the one that snubbed me, but **I **worry about hurting **his **feelings… I must be turning into Remus._ "Go and do whatever it is you want to do with – Look, she's even bought you your pie," he says, nodding over to where Lily is standing outside the café with a wrapped parcel in her hands. "Of course you'd rather spend time with her than with me."

"Padfoot," James says softly, sounding very embarrassed. "You're wrong about… About nearly everything. You're still my best friend."

"Sure I am," he laughs. "Who else would put up with you?"

"No, it's not that. Sirius," James says, his voice oddly solemn. "There's things I can't…" He sighs. "It's not up to me."

"Yes, I know. That's what I've been trying to tell you," he says. "You don't want to upset Lily, so - "

"No," James says insistently. "That's not it either. There's things I can't tell you. It's not… If it were up to me, you'd have been the first person I told."

"The first… So, other people have been told. Whatever it is that you told them. Just not me," he says flatly, struggling not to show his hurt. "I've news for you, Prongs. It _is _up to you. Don't bother speaking to me unless you've changed your mind."


	4. Segue

You know who you are,

I told you that it would be difficult getting anything past Sirius!

He's not suspicious of _me _anymore, but that's because he's too busy being suspicious about the pair of you.

He's a bit easier to live with now, but he's so fucking miserable. I imagine that James is much the same. This can't go on.

We'll have to ask for permission to let Sirius in on the secret. I know he has his reasons, but I don't find any of them particularly convincing.

Out of all of us, he's most likely to listen to you, but let me know if you want me to go with you.

R.J.L


	5. Part 3

_Day Nine — evening _

"When did you get back?" Remus asks, coming to join him in the front room.

"Awake at last, are we?" has says, mimicking James and grinning when Remus sticks his tongue out at him. "A couple of hours ago," he says, tilting his face up so that Remus can kiss him hello when he comes up to stand behind the armchair that Sirius is in.

"I see you started eating without me," Remus accuses, gesturing to the pile of torn wrappers on the coffee table.

"You were dead to the world," he says lightly, balancing the takeaway container in his lap and setting down his fork. "And I haven't eaten all that. That's from the shopping I put away."

"Put away into your _belly_, you mean," Remus says, smiling at him.

"No, prat. Your dinner - _our_ dinner – is just here," he says, pointing to the stack of cartons at his feet. "I only started on the salad," he adds, offering Remus a forkful of lettuce. "Salad doesn't count."

"Food!" Remus cries out, as though he hasn't been fed in months. He races around to the front, sitting on the floor between Sirius' legs and leaning back against the chair. "What did you get?" he asks, taking Sirius' fork from him and munching crunchily on the lettuce.

"Fish and chips," he says, slightly guiltily.

"Yes, because breakfast wasn't greasy enough," Remus laughs, handing back the fork and tearing eagerly into the packaging.

"I got a salad!" he points out indignantly, losing all interest in the greenery when the smell of deep fried batter hits his nose.

He knows that the food isn't good for him – he's known even before he completed the course in diet and nutrition at St Mungo's – but he'd never heard of fries, or bacon sandwiches, or curry, or sausages served with mashed potatoes before he went to Hogwarts.

Quite apart from his parents, the House Elves at Number 12 would have had conniptions over either having to 'make do' with such cheap cuts of meat, or devastating the flavour in a prime cut by mincing it and then frying it up in batter. And serving it with tomato sauce.

"How's your arm?"

"Can't feel it. Suppose that'll have to do for now," Remus says, breaking off a piece of cod and swallowing it without chewing. "How was your day?"

"All right," he says, tightening his legs around Remus while being mindful of his injured arm. He doesn't really want to think about work, or James, or any of the rest of it now. "Did you do anything other than sleep?"

"Rude," Remus says, pinching Sirius' leg hard. "Actually, I did get up for a bit around midday. I had a look at your notes on the different binding charms. I hope you don't mind."

"'Course I don't mind," he says lazily, settling back into the cushioned chair. Part of him wants to curl his feet up underneath him, but that would mean getting Remus to lift his head off his thigh, and he's quite happy having it where it is. "What did you think?"

"I think…" Remus says, before trailing off into silence. He doesn't fill the silence by eating or drinking.

"What is it? The notes aren't very thorough. I wasn't going to write out everything in every book. Just enough to remind me which charm was which."

"It's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be," Remus says, frowning into the distance at nothing. "Actually, no. That's not right. The charms aren't anywhere near as complicated as they need to be. They're too black and white, too all or nothing."

"Why is that…" he starts to say, and then pauses to gather his thoughts. _First Lily, then Dearborn, then James and now… _"Why is that a problem?" he says, somehow managing to keep his voice smooth. "What's wrong with 'all'?"

"There are some parts of me I don't want to share with – " Remus cuts off as he looks up at Sirius. "No, Sirius. Not like - "

"You don't want to do it," he says softly, realising that he's no longer able to maintain a polite expression. "It's all right. You don't have to," he says, the words unconvincing even to his own ears.

"Sirius, it's not what you - "

"No, it's fine," he says, trying to keep his tone firm, but only managing angry. "It's the perfect end to a perfect day, really. Dearborn wants to sack me, Prongs has some big secret he won't tell me anything about, and now you - "

"Would you stop that!" Remus says, kneeling up in front of him and shaking him slightly. "You're overreacting for no - "

"Overreacting. Oh, please _forgive_ me for getting the wrong idea. It was only a couple of hours ago you were mad keen on the idea, but now you're saying that there are parts of you that you don't want to share with me."

"I'm a werewolf, remember?" Remus says fiercely, standing over him and shaking him harder. "How am I supposed to magically bind myself to a vow saying I would never, _ever _hurt you," Remus says, his voice catching slightly, "while at the same time magically binding your body to mine so that you feel what I go through once a month?"

He recoils from Remus' anger, realising that he hasn't thought about that at all.

"Twice a month," he says at last. "You transform into a wolf, and then you transform back into human. It's twice a month"

"I don't transform into a wolf. I transform from being human-shaped into being wolf-shaped," Remus says, relaxing back into his kneeling stance and pulling Sirius forward in the chair so that he's tenuously perched on the edge. "And then back again, when the moon sets."

"I hadn't thought of that," he admits, his voice shaking. Remus pulls him into a hug, kissing his throat and rubbing his back soothingly. "But… I wouldn't mind going through that every month if it meant being bound to you for - "

"No," Remus says, pulling back. "Don't finish that sentence. You've no idea what you're offering. Besides. _I _would mind. I need you to heal me and pamper me the morning after. You won't be able to do that if you're incapacitated by the pain as well."

"Remus - "

"_No_, Sirius. Maybe if it meant that between the two of us, we each only felt half the pain. _Maybe _then. But it doesn't. You'll feel what I feel, and we'll be doubling the pain between us. It's bad enough that _I _have to go through it. I'm not inflicting that pain on the one person I love more than anybody else on this earth."

"Sorry," he says, aware that he's misjudged the situation, and is behaving ridiculously. "I thought you were trying to tell me that you didn't want - "

"I do want. I _do_. More than anything," Remus says, cuddling him tightly again. "All I was trying to say is that there doesn't seem to be a charm that we can use just like that. _But_. We're not lacking for time. It's still summer holidays for my students, and you have two weeks' – Wait, what were you saying earlier about being sacked?"

"I didn't say I was sacked. Only that Dearborn _wants _to sack me. I don't know why," he says, when Remus opens his mouth to ask.

"I don't believe it," Remus says angrily, taking a savage bite out of his dinner. "He seemed very impressed with the way you'd handled this," Remus gestures to his arm, "when I saw him this morning"

"He was so angry when he saw me today. Gave me a thorough interrogation about what I was doing there on my day off, and how I should have been able to make up the tablets myself. In front of everybody too. And…" He takes a deep breath, steeling himself to tell Remus the most upsetting part. "I asked him if he was upset with me, or if I hadn't done something I was supposed to have done…"

"And what did he say?" Remus prompts gently.

"That I was on holiday, so he wasn't under any obligation to discuss my performance. And that we'd talk about it when I returned. That can't be a good sign, can it? I'm pretty sure he's trying to come up with a way to suspend me."

"The prat. I actually thought he was a decent bloke. Want me to invent some symptoms for when I go and see him on Saturday so that he'll be unable to diagnose me? Not that he _has _been able to diagnose me as yet."

"No," he says, although the thought makes him smile. "I want him to fix you up as quickly as possible."

"Well, don't hold your breath," Remus says. "You're not eating," he admonishes, giving Sirius' takeaway carton a poke. "And don't try to tell me you already filled up on salad," he adds, twisting back to return to his earlier position, seated on the floor.

"Mmm." He turns his attention back to his dinner. "Want one of my scallops?"

"Sirius, if you wanted cod, you should have got some for yourself," Remus says, without turning around.

"I didn't say I wanted to _swap_," he points out reasonably, reaching down to steal some of Remus' cod anyway, just to spite him.

"You see!" Remus says, slapping at his hand. "When I said there were some parts of me that I didn't want to share with you, this is _exactly _what I was talking about."

~~*~~

_Day Eleven — morning_

"How many times do we have to go over this? It's no good buying Russian Caravan Tea if you're going to forget the cherry jam."

"I've put in an order for the jam," Remus says calmly, putting away the milk and the butter he's just bought.

Despite the fact that Sirius went shopping only two days ago, Remus absentmindedly left both the milk and the butter on the counter overnight, and the summer heat turned them both rancid.

"Then you should have told them to deliver the tea with it. It's no good having one without the other. You _know _this."

"What I know, Sirius Black, is never to try to do anything nice for you ever again. If the jam is so bloody urgent, why didn't you buy it yourself the other day?"

"I didn't feel like any then," he says, still holding the paper-wrapped packet of tea in his hands and sniffing at it. "But now that it's here, and I can smell it, I really, _really _want some tea, but I haven't any jam to stir through it."

"Oh, give it here," Remus says impatiently, snatching the package out of his fingers and storming off. There's a faint and distant thud, and then Remus returns. "It's in my room now. You'll have to make do with Darjeeling until the jam gets here."

"When _does _the jam get here?" he asks hopefully, levering himself up onto the counter and swinging his legs as Remus comes to talk to him.

"It should be here this afternoon," Remus says, reaching past him for the shopping bag. "Look, I also bought you some chocolate bisc- What are you making that face for?"

"I don't like these ones. They're too crunchy," he adds, when he sees Remus' face darken.

"Right," Remus says, tossing the biscuits out the window without further comment. "And I suppose you don't want these either, then?"

As he says this, Remus pulls a stack of newspapers out of the shopping bag. He's about to tell Remus that he doesn't need eight copies of _The Times_, but on closer inspection, the front page on each of the copies is different.

"You managed to get back issues of – You're _brilliant_," he says, reaching for the stack, and seeing that the dates are from last week, matching the period he's interested in. He has to tear himself away from going through the papers at once to look at Remus and thank him properly. Stretching his legs out on either side of Remus, he locks his ankles behind Remus' back and pulls him forward. "Thank you," he says, nuzzling at Remus' throat before kissing him gratefully.

"Go on and read them. You know you want to," Remus laughs, starting to pull away.

Sirius doesn't let him. He keeps his ankles crossed, and has to cling to the counter with both hands to keep from falling off, but it doesn't take very long for Remus to get the message.

"See. You _do _know what I want," he murmurs, leaning forward to kiss Remus again.

Remus wraps both of his arms around Sirius' neck, closing the gap between them. While they still haven't worked out what's the matter with Remus' arm, he's regained the functionality of his injured arm, mostly thanks to being able to lock out the pain.

"Fusspot," Remus says affectionately, brushing his lips against Sirius' before he kisses him properly.

"Yeah, I am," he agrees unabashedly, when Remus releases his mouth. He rubs his cheek against Remus', and says, "Incredibly fussy. I'm not satisfied with any old thing." Breaking off to look Remus meaningfully in the eyes, he adds, "I have to have the best."

"Flatterer. Don't think that's getting you out of trouble, though. Not after you maligned the biscuits I bought you."

"They're awful, Remus. You take one bite and end up with a mouthful of shards."

"Chocolate shards," Remus says earnestly.

"Not chocolate shards, Remus. Shards of your own teeth."

"Prat. Here, let me try something."

"What are – Hey, careful!" he says, as Remus lets his arms fall around Sirius' waist and lifts him off the counter. "Don't hurt yourself."

"Don't drop _you_, you mean," Remus laughs, stepping away from the counter with Sirius wrapped around him tightly.

"It's been known to happen," he says, tightening his legs further and slinging his arms around Remus' shoulders. "Is this not hurting you? Or straining your arm?"

"I can't feel any pain."

"That doesn't mean it isn't doing you harm," he says worriedly. "Put me down, Remus."

"In a minute," Remus says, nipping at his throat. "I was thinking how it's been ages since I fucked you up against a wall. That's how you like it best, isn't it? Trapped and squirming, with your back to the wall, and your legs around my waist" Remus murmurs, lapping at the bite.

"Yes," he says, sorely tempted to go along with it. "But if I had to choose between not being fucked up against the wall now, and not being fucked up against the wall ever again, I'd choose the first one."

"I hadn't realised those were our only options," Remus says, practically purring by now as he nuzzles Sirius affectionately.

It's an effort to make himself speak.

"There's this Muggle disease. I forget what it's called. People who suffer from it have no feeling on their skin, so bits of their bodies fall off over time." He puts a hand under Remus' chin and lifts his face up to look at him. "You're drugged to the eyeballs on Mind Sleep, Remus. Your arm could be tearing itself in two and you wouldn't feel a thing. Put me down. _Please_."

Remus sets him back onto the counter top, still licking and sucking at his throat. "Your pillow talk could do with a lot of work, Black."

"I won't say anything unsexy when you're feeling – oh,_ fuck_ yes, just there. Mmm… What was I saying?"

"Nothing important," Remus says, lifting his mouth from Sirius' collarbone, grinning and undoing the buttons on Sirius' shirt.

"Bastard. I'll work on my pillow talk as long as you remember to get the right biscuits from now on. Actually, it's probably safest if you agree never to do the shopping without me."

"As long as _you _stop talking when I'm trying to fuck you," Remus says, tracing his fingers over Sirius' sweat-slick skin and making him shiver in spite of the day's persistent warmth. "Oh yes," he says, when Sirius hisses in pleasure. "That's much more like it."

"What are you going to do to me?" he asks as Remus pulls him off the countertop, all thoughts of biscuits, tea, and newspapers chased out of his mind by the simple fact that Remus wants to have him right now.

"I'll show you," Remus promises, leading him to their bedroom.

Later — quite a bit later — they're curled on top of the sheets of their bed, with bars of sunlight painting stripes of light over their bodies and the patter of light rain falling onto the balcony and the rest of the world outside.

"About the bonding… I think we've put this conversation off for long enough," Remus says, somehow managing to play with Sirius' hair without actually looking at him.

"We can have it whenever you want to. Including 'never'," he says, touching Remus' face so that Remus looks at him.

"No. Not 'never'," Remus says firmly, as though steeling himself. "I flicked through the books you took your notes from and… I can't understand one word in ten in those. Being written in Ye Olde Englishe doesn't help matters, either. But your notes…"

"What is it you want to know?" He pulls the top sheet over both of them. It's still mostly warm, but there's a cool breeze accompanying the rain that raises goosebumps on his skin for all the wrong reasons. "We can check with someone else, if you don't want to just rely on my notes."

"I trust your notes," Remus says, brushing a lock of hair away from Sirius' eyes. "I don't for one moment doubt that any charm you come up with won't do what we want it to, but what is it that we want it to do?"

"I didn't understand a word of that," he says, closing his eyes and making himself comfortable against Remus' body. "Can you try that one again?"

Remus growls in frustration. "I'm saying that I'm sure your notes are right, that you've summarised exactly what each spell does. You don't make mistakes like that. What I'm not sure about is which spell to use."

"Not one of the physical transfer ones, where I feel what you feel," he says, opening his eyes again and looking at Remus, still with his fingers on Remus' face.

"No," Remus says quietly. "Well, maybe. Is there anyway to shut it off, or block it? I wouldn't mind if I could block it once a month."

"Can't be done. Same goes for the telepathic ones, now that I think of it. I mean, if you really try hard, you can block the other person, but once a month, you're not going to be able to concentrate."

"I don't want to inflict those thoughts on you," Remus says at once. "I don't want anybody to know about those thoughts."

"Ssh, Remus, it's all right."

He's not offended in the slightest that Remus doesn't want him to know about that side of him. Several full moons ago, the only way he was able to distract Remus from sinking his teeth into a human being was by transforming back into being human himself.

He's never forgotten the expression on that lupine face when it turned towards him, and he really doesn't want to know what was going through Remus' mind in the handful of seconds that elapsed before the danger passed and he was able to transform back into being a dog.

"The thing is, though," he says, hoping that he doesn't sound hurt or disappointed as he speaks, "those spells are the only ones that are suitable for us."

"What about standard magical wedding vows? They can bind us, so that I'll know if you're in pain or frightened, without actually feeling it myself," Remus says hopefully.

"I haven't found one that would work," he says, closing his eyes. "Most of them will only bind after you've taken my maidenhead."

"More than happy to do that," Remus says, stifling a laugh. "Just tell me where you keep it."

"I hate you," he says lazily, running tickling fingers down Remus' front so that he can play with his cock. "Besides. The girl needs to be a virgin for it to work. And between the two of us, we're fairly short on girls _and _virgins. The other option is to set the vows to bind after the birth of - "

"Please be joking."

"No, not a joke. After the birth of our first child. Of course, it's traditional to specify the gender of the child, and most people want to link it to the birth of their first son, but I don't - "

"Hang on. That doesn't make any sense. If the vows only bind after the birth of a child… I mean… Isn't it a bit too late, by then? How is the wizard supposed to be certain that the child is his, if the vows haven't bound them until after the baby's born?"

"Well, it's true that wizards prefer the first vow – the maidenhead one – while witches prefer the second. Suppose it comes down to whoever's best at negotiating, really."

"There must be wedding vows that bind instantly," Remus says, taking Sirius' hand off his prick. "You can stop that - it's not going to wake up for a while, Sirius."

"That doesn't mean I can't still play with it," he points out, returning his fingers to where they were before. "Instant wedding vows, now…" Remus snorts. "What's so funny?"

"Instant wedding vows – just add water!" Remus manages to squeak, before dissolving into laughter.

"I'm adding that to the list of reasons why you aren't allowed to go grocery shopping without me. That instant coffee garbage you bought was simply foul. I don't believe for one minute it was derived from real coffee. Getting back to the instant wedding – shut up, Remus – the instant wedding vows, they're not as strong as the others in one sense, because you don't have the constant mental presence of the other person at all times. But in another sense, they're a bit stronger, because they're… I can't believe I'm going to say this. They're derived from the Unbreakable – Remus, if you make another instant coffee joke, I will end you."

Remus is laughing so hard he has to sit up in bed, clutching his sides. "I'm just… It's not what you think. I'm just remembering the expression on your face when I persuaded you to try instant coffee the first time, and…"

He rolls his eyes, and folds his arms over his chest as Remus falls prey to another fit of laughter.

"The first and only time," he says haughtily, but this only makes Remus wheeze with the effort of not laughing harder. "I hate you so much."

"I'm sorry," Remus says, not looking at all sorry as he crawls over to Sirius and puts his head in Sirius' lap.

"You will be," he promises. "The thing with…what we were talking about," he says, determined not to say 'instant wedding vows' ever again, "is that they're similar to the Unbreakable Vow. You need a third party as a Binder, and if you don't keep up your end of the vow, then… then you keel over." That cuts off Remus' laughter instantly. "So you can see why I don't think that those sorts of vows are - "

"But if you can choose the words of the vow," Remus says, "then you can make a vow that you won't break. Like the standard one – love, honour and protect."

"I don't want a standard vow," he says. "We'll be bound to one another for the rest of our lives. I want vows that are specific to us. But I also don't want anything that will mean one or the other of us falls over dead if we inadvertently - "

"What if we just spoke the words out loud to one another? You don't like that idea," Remus says, before he can say anything. He realises he must be frowning.

"We won't be bound if we just say the words out loud. Why bother doing it at all if - "

"All right. All _right_. It was just an idea. Not a very good one."

"Remus, if you don't want to do it, you only have to say."

"We could write our own vows," Remus says instead, reaching up to play with his hair again. "Just like you suggested before - I vow not to go shopping without you, you vow not to talk during sex - "

"_Remus_," he says sharply, letting Remus know that he's not in the mood to be made fun of.

"Let's try this, then," Remus says, picking up on his tone at once. "We want it to be simple, but personal, don't we? So. What if we both vow not to sleep with anybody else, not to lie to one another, and not to hurt one another?"

He leans back against the head of the bed, thinking about it while stroking Remus' face. "No," he sighs. "That won't work."

"Why won't it work?"

"Well. Say, for example – purely hypothetically – that one of us bought an extremely expensive new shirt - "

"This shirt wouldn't happen to be the red one with the gold - "

"It can look like whatever you want, Remus, this is just an example."

"Get on with it."

"One of us buys an extremely expensive shirt, which the other one doesn't care for. Except that the first one of us wants the second one of us's honest opinion on - "

"Yes, all right, I can see where this is going."

"So, either I… Er, that is. Either the first one of us lies, and says it's a gorgeous shirt, in which case they fall down dead for lying to the other one of us. Or he tells the truth and says that it's the most hideous, garish monstrosity ever to grace a wardrobe, and then falls down dead for hurting the other one's feelings."

"I don't recall that you gave my feelings a lot of consideration at the time. Besides," Remus says, shifting about to get comfortable, "that just makes the vow more personal. 'I solemnly swear not to cheat on you, lie to you or hurt you, except if I'm doing it to spare your feelings." "And," he continues, as though something's just occurred to him, "when I said that I wouldn't hurt you, I meant that I wouldn't _intentionally _hurt you. If you're going to be unreasonably oversensitive, that's hardly my fault. And it doesn't count as hurting you if it's a prank, either."

"Yes it does," he says firmly, remembering seventh year, when Remus charmed Sirius' birthday cake to follow him around on little chocolaty feet, singing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' at him the whole day. It hadn't actually hurt him, but he had wanted to hex Remus inside out by the end of the day.

"All right, pranks don't count as long as you laugh about it later."

"I'll have to laugh about it later, won't I?" he says, scratching behind Remus' ears. "Otherwise you'll keel over."

They both snigger at the inanity of that.

"We'll think of something," Remus assures him.

"No doubt," he agrees, distracted by the flurry of wings outside the window.

"_There's _your bloody jam," Remus says, sitting up and pointing to the delivery owl that is perched on the railing of their balcony. Standing up, Remus wriggles into a pair of trousers. "Have you any change on you?"

"Do I _look _like I have any change on me?" he asks, throwing off the bed sheet and gesturing to his naked self.

"No. You look bloody fantastic, actually. Don't you dare move. I'll see to you in just one minute," Remus tells him, giving him a lascivious wink before running off.

Remus reappears on the balcony a couple of seconds later, having climbed out onto it from his room. He pays the owl and comes back into their room brandishing the glass jar at Sirius triumphantly.

"See? Don't try to tell me I don't pay attention to what you like. This is the brand you prefer, and I even got the one that has chunks of actual fruit in it, and without any added sugar or - "

"I'm sorry to have maligned your ability to shop," he says, trying to look contrite.

"You _will _be sorry," Remus says, grinning. "And you can start showing how sorry you are," he continues, opening the jar and flinging the lid somewhere over his shoulder, "by licking it off my - "

"This is raspberry jam," he says, registering the violent shade of red coating Remus' fingers as he comes closer. "I like cherry."

"What? I told them… This is not my fault! I told them cherry, and they've delivered the wrong one."

"It's all right," he says, taking Remus' arm by the wrist and giving his fingers an experimental lick before pulling a face at the tart taste. "But it does mean that if anybody around here is going to be doing any licking," he says, as he presses Remus' hand to his chest, the jam coming off in swipes of lurid, red stripes, "it'll be _you_."


	6. Segue

"Remus! Over here!"

He crosses the corridor into Lily' office.

"How are you since I saw you last?" he asks, smiling at her. He doesn't wait for her to answer – they saw one another just this morning, when they'd made their appeal to have Sirius be allowed to share in the secret. "Is Prongs joining us?"

"_James _will be along in a moment. He didn't want to come at all, but I told him Sirius wasn't coming. _Then _he had to pretend that that wasn't the reason he didn't want to come, and so he tried to convince me he still wasn't coming because – Oh, look. It doesn't matter. He's on his way."

"How's Peter?"

"I've no idea. Still under observation, I assume. James and I tried to go and see him again yesterday morning, but we were told only family members were allowed in. I managed to get them to let me speak to Marlene. I asked if she wanted to join us this afternoon, but she doesn't want to leave his side."

"I don't blame her," he says, not adding that he knows exactly how she feels, because he can't bear to be apart from Sirius these days.

"No," Lily sighs, shifting rolls of parchment out of the way and leaning forward on her desk. "It's selfish of me, I know, but I'm so relieved she's spending so much time at the hospital, because it means that James can stay over. I just… I don't want to let him out of my sight. God, listen to me go on, when all of you could have been…" She sighs. "Poor Marlene. Poor _Peter_."

"I almost think I got off lightly," he says, referring to his arm.

"Don't be ridiculous. They don't even know what you have, yet. The only reason they sent you home was because you had the bad luck to run into Sirius at St Mungo's, otherwise you'd be under observation too, and Sirius would think we were all still on our holiday. How is he, by the way? "

"Fine. Fairly certain he's about to be sacked."

"The poor thing," Lily murmurs sympathetically. "Dearborn'll allow him back in as soon as Peter's discharged, but Sirius can't know that, can he?"

"I left him at home with a stack of back issues of _The Times_. That should keep him out of mischief for the rest of the afternoon."

Lily smiles at that. "I was going to ask how you managed to get out of the house twice in one day without making him suspicious."

"He doesn't get suspicious, Lily. He's naturally curious, so he'll ask me where I've been or what I've been up to. If I can't come up with something convincing, _then _he gets suspicious."

"If you say so."

"I do say so. It's not suspicion, he just takes an interest in what I do," he says, looking around the office.

Since leaving school, Lily started work with an advanced experimental potions research firm. There are small fires all over the place with cauldrons of different sizes and metals bubbling away merrily. And, looking remarkably out of place, a Muggle telephone propped on her desk, with a framed, animated picture of her and James on one side and a still picture of her mother and father on the other.

"There's only so often you can let the milk go rancid before he _does _get suspicious," she says, smiling at him.

"I've only done it once," he points out.

As soon as Lily confirmed she'd be able to meet him, he'd taken care to leave the dairy products out of their chilled draw the night before, excusing himself to go and buy more before Sirius was properly awake. _And _while shopping, he'd deliberately ordered the wrong jam so he'd have to pop out again.

_Pedantic little fusspot_, he thinks fondly. _But you couldn't pay me to change a single thing about you_. He makes a mental note to pick up cherry jam on his way home, hoping that this meeting won't take long. Sirius had started to brew some tea when he set out, and if he's late coming back with the jam, there'll be another tantrum to placate. _Not that I **mind **placating them…_

"Good afternoon, Lily. Remus. How is your arm, Remus?"

They both look up to see Dumbledore standing in the doorway, with James by his side.

"It's no longer hurting me, sir. Thank you for asking."

"We wanted to talk to you about Sirius, Professor," Lily says, coming to the point straight away.

"I thought you might," Dumbledore says, taking the visitor's seat in front of Lily' desk without being invited to.

James comes over to join Lily and Remus on the other side of the desk. He can't help but think they look like they're visually arraying themselves as a united front.

"I told you about the Order of the Phoenix, and that it was highly secret. I warned you about this at the outset, and asked you to think carefully about it before agreeing to join," Dumbledore says, before any of them can speak. "You all knew you might have to keep secrets from your friends," he adds, looking over at James. Poor James looks almost as wretched as Sirius looked the other day.

"We aren't keeping secrets from our friends, sir," James says. "Only one friend. Sirius. All of the rest of us are in on it, and he's the only one that isn't. It's not what we had in mind when we agreed to keep secrets from our _friends_," James adds, emphasising the plural.

"_And _there have been a couple of unfortunate coincidences," Lily says, firmly but politely. "Sirius knows that something happened in Seacombe, and he's managed to guess that it was a Death Eater attack. We had to do some fast talking to convince him that we hadn't been staying there after all. We were also supposed to be on our mission in Seacombe for two weeks, but we were captured only six days into our task. And when we managed to escape…"

"We were told Sirius had been sent home already," he says. "Dearborn treated us at Head Quarters the first day, because Sirius was still at the hospital, but the next day, he gave us the all clear to go into St Mungo's. Where I ran into Sirius before I'd even been admitted. If Sirius had been sent home, as Dearborn told us he had, he wouldn't have seen me at the hospital, and he wouldn't have known that I was back."

"We don't know how he found out, but he knows about Seacombe," James says, "even though he doesn't know that we were involved in the clean‑up operation. He knows that something's being covered up, and that's _why _he's looking. Because he wants to know what it is. And he's been given two weeks off with nothing to do, so he's going to dig at this more and more."

"I know what we all originally agreed, sir," Lily says. "But circumstances have changed. Previously, Sirius didn't have any reason to believe we were hiding anything from him. Now he does and it's upsetting him. And _that's _upsetting us. He's extraordinarily unpleasant to be around when he's like this."

"You have to let Sirius join the Order of the Phoenix, sir," he says, trying to match Lily' firm, polite tone.

"Either that, or we'll all quit," James says. "Not just us, but Peter and Marlene too."

Nobody says anything for a moment. They've said everything they mean to, and it's up to Dumbledore now.

"I shall, of course, take your words to heart," Dumbledore says at last. "But do think, won't you, on the situation you will be putting your friend in if he's asked to join the Order? Knowing what you do about his brother."

"_When _Sirius is asked to join the Order," James says, "he'll accept."

Dumbledore regards them gravely, before nodding to himself. "As you say. I shall inform you of my decision shortly. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

They're all too stunned to say anything as Dumbledore lets himself out of Lily' office. He'd been hoping for a short meeting, but he's amazed at how short it ended up being.

"He might as well have come straight out and said he doesn't trust Padfoot," James says, slumping into Lily's visitor chair.

"Of course he doesn't trust Padfoot," he says, summoning a chair from the empty office across the hall.

"What do you mean by that?" Lily asks.

"Well, for starters, you heard the remark he made about Sirius' brother. Sirius is a Black. Secondly, not only is Sirius a pureblood, but he doesn't owe Dumbledore anything."

"Rubbish. Sirius would have been expelled in sixth year if it wasn't for Dumbledore," Lily says.

"No. That was me," James says quietly.

Dumebldore_ had_ been ready to expel Sirius over the incident with Snape, but it had been dicey. Dumbledore couldn't prove that Sirius had known that Remus was a werewolf, but he had been determined to expel him anyway.

_Either that or give him the famous Albus Dumbledore Second Chance to Redeem Himself_, he thinks grimly.

James had said that while Sirius deserved to be punished for what he'd done, that he, James, had surely earned a reward for saving Snape's life, and that he wanted to use that to keep Sirius from being expelled.

In addition to that, Regulus Black had gone running to Slughorn, demanding that the Slytherin Head of House get Snape to withdraw his complaint, and if he didn't, then all of the connections that Slughorn maintained through the Blacks would vanish. And in the end, the vain Potions Master complied.

He's not sure that James knows about Regulus' interference, though.

"At the end of the day, Dumbledore doesn't have a hold on Sirius. You're a Muggleborn," he says, gesturing to Lily, "you're in love with one," he says, gesturing to James, "and I'm a werewolf, who was only able to complete my NEWTS because of Dumbledore's generosity. Wormtail's in the same situation, because his father died in Third Year, and his mother couldn't afford his school fees — Dumbledore kept him on anyway, all the way to Seventh Year. Marlene's got a twin sister who's a Squib.

"We all have good reasons to be members of the Order, or at least reasons that Dumbledore can trust. Sirius doesn't."

Both James and Lily are looking at him in shock, as though they're waiting for the punch line. He keeps forgetting that neither of them is as cynical as he and Sirius are, and that he can't say things like that outright, in the way he would be able to with Sirius.

"Padfoot _would _choose our side," James says, visibly furious that Sirius' loyalty could ever be in doubt.

"_I _know that. _You _know that. But Dumbledore doesn't," Lily says gently.

"This is intolerable," he says. "We agreed to do the investigative work in Seacombe on condition that we'd have help in keeping it from Sirius."

"It isn't Dumbledore's fault we were captured," James says dully, staring off into the distance at nothing. "As if being captured weren't bad enough, I have to worry about Padfoot's feelings on top of - "

"It isn't Padfoot's fault. He doesn't _know_," he says sharply. "I was captured too. I haven't told him. He isn't hacked off at _me_."

"Yes, but…" James starts to say, before subsiding into silence. "He's pissed off with me because I wanted to spend that day with Lily rather than with him."

"He doesn't know that you were captured," he points out. "He doesn't know that the two of you were separated, or that she not only hadn't seen you in three days but she hadn't known whether you were alive or hurt for a lot of that time."

"I know that," James says irritably. "But it's not _my _fault he doesn't know, and I don't see wh- "

There's a silver flash at the door, and then a phoenix Patronus flying towards them on silent wings. His stomach clenches, and there's bile rising in his throat. He looks away, as Lily takes the message.

"What does it say?" James asks.

"It says 'not yet'," Lily says sadly.

"Does it say whe- "

"No," Lily says, sighing. "We promised we wouldn't tell," she adds, without looking up at either of them.

"We promised lots of things," James says.

For some reason, he's reminded of something Sirius said earlier. _I'll have to laugh about it later, won't I? Otherwise you'll keel over._

"We had promises made to us too," he points out. "Those promises haven't been kept. If they had been, Sirius wouldn't - "

"I know," James says. "Only one thing for it."

He knows at once what James means. "We can't tell him, Prongs! Not without proof. And _certainly _not because you feel bad about the way he's made you feel recently."

"I can't keep lying to him," James says, starting to stand up. "You might find it easy, but I don't." He tries not to hear an accusation in James' tone. "I'm not doing to feel better, either. I should have told him right from the beginning. He's my best friend."

"Yes," Lily says, nodding her agreement. "And he needs to be told that his brother may be a Death Eater."


	7. Part 4

_Day Eleven — afternoon_

"I hope you like your tea strong," he says, looking up from the paper as the front door opens, "because the pot's been brewing for the last four hou- "

It's not just Remus, he realises, as Remus pushes the door all the way open to reveal James and Lily, all three of them looking frighteningly serious.

"Padfoot," James says, sounding oddly formal, despite using Sirius' nickname. After their last conversation, James wouldn't be here – particularly with Lily in tow – unless…

"Remus, can you boil some more water? That way, we'll have enough tea for four," he says, smiling in what he hopes is a welcoming fashion at James and Lily. "How are you feeling, Lily?"

"Much better, thanks Sirius. We've a lot to tell you," she says, constantly casting glances at James as she speaks.

"Prongs," he says equally formally, when James sits down without saying anything. "Whatever it is, I won't tell anybody else."

"I know that," James says stiffly. "The thing is…" James looks up as Remus brings in the tea things and starts fussing with them.

"You can't act on what we tell you," Lily says.

"Of course," he says simply. They're one and the same thing, to him. It's no good saying you won't tell anybody if your actions give you away. "What is it? Are you in some sort of trouble? Is there anything I can do to help?"

James and Lily look at one another again before James starts to talk.

"There's this organisation. It's headed up by Dumbledore. It's top secret— only members know about it. It's called the Order of the Phoenix."

"I suppose that means you're all members," he says, not meaning it for a question.

Remus passes him a cup of tea with a spoonful of cheery jam in it. "We were asked to join shortly before we left Hogwarts."

"_You _know what this is about?" he says, turning his attention to Remus. Remus doesn't look at him, but he nods as he hands Lily a cup of tea.

"Dumbledore approached James, Remus and I," Lily says. "As well as Peter and Marlene. Maybe others in our year, but we don't know about them if he did. We had to promise to keep it a secret. Even from our friends. We didn't realise that you hadn't been asked until after we'd promised."

They take in turns between the three of them to tell him the story, probably so that he's made aware that they're all in on this, and that there's no point being angry with any one of them in particular.

They tell him about what the Order stands for. About how members of this Order knew there was going to be a Death Eater attack in Seacombe. How the five of them – James, Remus, Peter, Lily and Marlene – were sent up there, along with some of the other members, to assist in finding out what they could from witnesses – Muggle and wizarding – before the whole thing was covered up by the Ministry.

How there'd never been a seaside holiday, or any intention of one – no obnoxious, snogging couples in Seacombe or Liverpool or wherever, no miserable Remus on his own, no putting off a ferry trip to Ireland because the ferries were disabled… Remus and James had planned the bogus holiday to give the five of them an excuse to nip up to Seacombe in order to complete the mission.

"But I was supposed to have come on that holiday too," he points out, struggling to digest all of this information.

"Caradoc Dearborn's a member of the Order," James says. "He told us he'd keep you out of the way."

"And you haven't been suspended," Lily adds. "You're being kept away because that's where they're processing all of the Muggle victims of the attack."

"But Dearborn said that there weren't any new patients," he says, confused. "I _asked _him, specifically."

"Dearborn lied, Sirius," James says. "He had to. You're not supposed to know about any of this."

"That and Peter's there, under observation," Lily says.

"Wormt- Why? _When_?"

"Same day as me," Remus says, his hands shaking as he lifts his cup to his mouth. "They admitted him after Dearborn had sent you on your way."

_I'm not angry with you, _he wants to say_. Please don't be scared of me. _Nevertheless, he is a little alarmed at the scale of this conspiracy. Not just Lily and James, but Remus. And Dearborn. His _boss_.

"Whatever it is that's wrong with Moony' arm," James says, pointing to Remus. "Wormtail's got it all down his back."

"How did you get that injury, Moony?" he asks at once.

"I'll get to that," Remus says. "First, I wanted to tell you that the three of us met with Dumbledore today. Said that unless he allowed us to tell you about the Order, we'd quit."

"Well. That must have been daunting," he says, his lips involuntarily curving into a smile, even though he's not amused.

"That was nothing compared to what it's going to be like if you let on that you know about the Order," Lily says.

"He didn't agree," he realises. "Well, it was decent of you to try."

"He hasn't said 'no', but he hasn't said 'yes' either."

"Did he say…" He doesn't know how to ask this, except to say it straight out. "Did he say why?" he manages in a whisper.

He really wishes that Lily and James weren't here, or that Lily weren't looking at him so pityingly.

James draws in a deep breath, and finally says, "Sirius, your brother's a Death Eater."

Of all the responses he was expecting, _that _is not one of them.

"I beg your pardon? How do you know?"

"Because he _is_," James says, not looking at him.

"How do you _know_?"

"We haven't any proof," Remus says quickly. "We didn't want to say anything to you until we did, but…"

"We do have proof," Lily says, her voice sharp.

"No, we don't," James says, turning to face her wearily.

"Yes, we do," Lily says. "Sirius, your brother took Peter, James, Marlene and Remus prisoner. From Seacombe. And he kept them in the cells of your family's property in Staffordshire until they escaped."

"He didn't take Lily prisoner. Just trained his wand on her heart and told her he didn't have any use for Mudbloods and that she could either leave or die," James says.

"He… what?" None of them will look at him. "Are you…" He wants to ask if they're sure, but stops himself. Of course they're sure. They wouldn't be telling him unless they were certain. "That doesn't make him a Death Eater…"

"Sirius is right. That doesn't _prove _that his brother is a Death Eater," Remus says, as though conceding his point. Sirius looks over to him gratefully, only to have Remus say, "He probably is a Death Eater, but _this _doesn't prove it."

"Regulus wouldn't… " he starts to say, realising even as he does that they wouldn't be making this up. _Remus stopped writing to me after six days, _he thinks, remembering how worried he'd been when the letters stopped. "That…" He's stunned into silence. "I had no idea. I thought… I thought you were all on holiday without me, and now it turns out that… I'm not saying I don't believe you, but … Why would he take you prisoner? Did he say why?"

"We managed to escape before he could actually ask us anything," James says softly. His tone sends shivers down Sirius' spine.

"But that doesn't…" _I saw him. He came to the hospital that day. Why would he… _"Were you interrogated?"

"We weren't mistreated, if that's what you want to know," Remus says.

"It is," he replies. "It… I can't…" He really, really wishes that Lily and James weren't here, because he wants nothing more than to fling himself into Remus' arms. "I'm so sorry."

"You needn't be," Lily says. "You're not your brother."

"My brother wasn't the one that behaved like a prat for the last three days," he says, giving James an apologetic shrug.

"You weren't to know," Remus tells him.

"But if I wasn't to know, why did… You came to the hospital and asked for me, that night," he says, turning to Remus, who has finally looked up to meet his eyes.

"No, I didn't," Remus starts to say.

"You _did_. I only came out of the staff room because I thought I'd heard your voice, and when I came out you were asking Suzette if I was about."

"Yes," Remus agrees. "Because I wanted to make sure you'd gone home before letting them admit me. _Not _because I was asking her to fetch you."

"When we escaped, I wanted to get Remus to the hospital straight away, but we contacted Dearborn first, to make sure you weren't there," James says. "He told us you'd gone home."

"But… You couldn't have," he says, frowning. "Dearborn wasn't there himself until after Remus arrived. How could you have contacted him?"

"He's a member of the Order," James reminds him.

"We have a special way of contacting other Order members, using a Patronus," Lily says. "Look, that's not really important right now. Are you all right?"

"No," he says at once, wondering if anybody really expects him to say yes. "Of course I'm not all right."

"I understand," she says. "It's a lot to take in."

"We didn't want you to find out like this," Remus says.

"You didn't want me to find out at all," he says dully.

"Not until we had proof," James says. "Bloody hell, Padfoot. Even _with_ proof, we wouldn't bring that sort of accusation to you lightly."

"I know. I _know_," he says, trying to think. "But…" _Why would he do this now_?"It's school holidays," he says, realising something. "They only started a week ago. That's why…"

"That's why what?"

"I was wondering why Regulus had done this to you now. He could have done it earlier. He knows where you live. And he could easily find out where you work," he says, regretting his words when he sees Lily go pale. "But it's happening now because he's not at school over summer."

_Still only a school boy, but a Death Eater already._

"Where are you going?" Remus asks, frowning up at him.

He realises with a start that he's standing up. "I have to see him."

"You can't see him, Sirius."

"He might try to do this again, and - "

"You can't go. You can't give away that - "

"For fuck's sake!" he cries. "Listen to yourselves! Regulus tried to hold you captive and – Did he do that to your arm?"

"Not… Not exactly," Remus says, glancing at the injury. "It happened while we were escaping, but - "

"That makes him responsible for it. You didn't give him the answers he wanted, if you had to escape rather than having him let you go. What if he does it again? What's your Order of the Phoenixgoing to do to protect you? What are they _doing_? _Are _they doing anything? Can somebody answer me, please?"

"You promised you wouldn't give us away," Remus says quietly. "If you go and confront your brother - "

"He's _my _brother. I can do whatever I like to him. Nobody's going to work out that - "

"Everybody will work it out," James says, standing up as well. "You. Can't. _Go_. You have to pretend that we haven't told you anything. You can't tell anybody, and you _can't _act on it."

"Prongs - "

"You can't, Sirius," Lily says, sadly.

He stares around at them, each of them worried that he's going to give them away. Not worried about the fact that his baby brother is a malevolent psychopath. Worried that Dumbledore might get cross.

He can't stand to be around them anymore. Ignoring their voices, calling his name, he turns away from them, wishing he could out manoeuvre his worries the same way.

~*~

_Day Eleven — evening_

"I'm doing steak for dinner," Remus calls from the kitchen. "Do you want one or two?"

"I don't want anything!" he calls back, lifting his pillow and putting it over his head.

"I didn't hear you," Remus says, his voice getting closer. "You didn't just say you didn't want anything, did you?"

"I'm not hungry!" He heard Lily and James leave shortly after he stormed off, so it's not that he's avoiding company. He really just wants to be left alone.

"There's no need to shout," Remus says, his voice coming from somewhere near the doorway. "Hey. Can I come in?" Remus asks, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe.

He throws the pillow off and rolls onto his side, squinting at the doorway. He's extinguished all the lights in his room, so his vision is blurry as he looks at Remus waiting to be allowed in, silhouetted by the hall lamps.

"Yeah, come in," he says, rolling onto his back but propping himself up on his elbows.

It's futile to try to avoid Remus, anyway. Remus always seems to know when Sirius _truly _wants to be left alone as opposed to when Sirius is merely sulking, secretly wanting to be comforted.

"Are you still upset with me?"

"Am I…? No! _No_," he says, making himself sit up more as Remus comes over to join him. "I don't… It must have been really difficult for you. I'm not upset. Not at you. Or at Prongs. But… _Fuck_, Remus. Finding out that my brother had you locked up when I thought you were enjoying yourself at the seaside… You can't blame me for having lost my appetite."

"No, I can't. Not after the day you've - "

"_Don't_. The day I've had is nothing compared to the week you've had. Being ordered into a disaster zone. Being captured and kept. Having to escape. Not being able to tell anybody about it."

"I never tell anybody anything anyway," Remus says, smiling slightly. "It was not being able to tell _you _that bothered me. You're the one I can talk to about anything. You're my best friend."

"You knew what you were getting into when you left, didn't you?" He's remembering that first Howler, the number of times Remus said he loved him, the way everything was tidied away and spotless when he got home. "You knew you might be killed, and - "

"I thought there was a chance that - "

"You weren't lounging around in a hostel. You were doing real, serious work for this Order. And you still found time to write to me every day."

"Of course I wrote to you everyday. I couldn't have you worrying."

"You left the place _spotless _before you left. You really did think there was a chance that you might never come back, didn't you?

"Sirius…"

"And you were going to leave me with a clean kitchen and a lot of lascivious Howler to remember you by."

"I definitely thought we were going to die when James told your brother that we weren't going to answer any of his questions."

"Did he hurt you?"

"No."

"Are you just saying that so I won't - "

"No."

"Are you just saying _that _so I won't track him down and - "

"Well, you'll never know, will you?"

"What happened to your arm, Remus?"

Remus has the expression on his face that he always does when he's thinking about how best to say something without setting Sirius off.

"I pushed it under the cell door to grab the keys when he dropped them. I'm thinner than both James and Marlene, so we all agreed that I should try it. Something on the bottom of the door caught on my arm, and I couldn't get it free. When I pulled, it took bits of your shirt and my skin with it."

"My shirt?" He'd forgotten about that.

"I wore it everyday."

He tells himself to pay attention to what is important. "Was that how you escaped?"

"Not really. It was how we got out of the cell, though. Your brother," – he notices that Remus will only refer to him as 'your brother', rather than as 'Regulus' – "let Lily go, remember? And Peter was able to escape almost immediately, by transforming and squeezing out from under the door."

"That's how he hurt his back?"

Remus nods. "Lily notified the Order. Your brother was coming to check on us, and then he dropped the keys and ran off. I think the other Order members started arriving then, to get us out. I didn't know that at the time, so - "

"So you reached for the keys under the door and… Remus, none of this makes any sense."

"I'm telling you the truth, Sirius."

"I don't doubt that," he says. "But are you sure it was Regulus? Are you sure it couldn't have been someone else?"

"I know what your brother looks like, Sirius. It was - "

"It wasn't Polyjuice?" Remus' expression is pitying and doubtful at the same time. "He came to the hospital, Remus. The same day you came with your injured arm. I spoke to him not five minutes before you turned up. He was gloating at me about having a meeting with the head of the hospital, because they're after him for a donation. Sneering that he'd put in a good word for me. And… And he's only a Third Year, Remus. How could he have out‑duelled the five of you? Marlene's an Auror Cadet. She wouldn't have been overpowered by a school boy, would she?"

"I don't know, Sirius."

He sighs, not sure what to make of any of this, and wishing that the last week simply hadn't happened. "So how did you escape, then?"

"Lily arrived with other members of the Order, and got James and Marlene and I out of there. We were Apparated to the Order Head Quarters – I can't tell you where it is -- and Dearborn treated all of us. He said that it wasn't safe for us to go to St Mungo's until we were stable, and that even then, you were likely to still be there, and he'd have to get rid of you first."

"You escaped? Just like that?" he asks, even more confused. "There were no wards? No traps? They just walked in and found you, and then the lot of you simply walked out?"

"The place looked pretty well abandoned," Remus says, frowning as he tries to remember.

"Yes, that's because it's been shut up since… Well, since before I was born, really. The place out in the country was used to entertain, but w- _they _stopped using it when my grandmother had the ballroom in Number 12 enlarged. You're sure it was my family's property in Staffordshire?"

"I... Where else would he have taken us? It was definitely in Staffordshire. And I know that your family has a property there, so - "

"Would you know how to get there?" he says, rolling out of bed and standing up, eager to do something at last, instead of simply stewing with worry.

"I don't think so," Remus says. "Lily would, though."

Something else occurs to him. "How did you get your wands back?"

"They were never taken from us," Remus says. "But the cells where we were kept were… Something had been done to keep magic from working. That's probably why we weren't tortured."

His stomach turns at the thought of Regulus torturing anybody – let alone his lover and his best friend. _And Marlene._

"But Peter was able to transform," he points out, sinking back down onto the bed. "Maybe the wards only kept you from Apparating, or from using your wands…"

"Sirius, I know he's your brother, but - "

"I'm not defending him because he's my brother, Remus. I'm just… None of this makes any sense. It doesn't make any _sense _that he was able to beat all five of you in a duel. Not unless he took you by surprise, and you already said he didn't. It doesn't make sense that he let you keep your wands. He's not _stupid_.

"He wouldn't leave that sort of thing to chance. It doesn't make sense that he'd go to all the trouble of taking you to an abandoned property out in the country, but then let Lily go so she could bring the Order to save you. Can we get her on the Floo? Please? I just want to see what this place looks like." If he can just see where the three of them were held… If he can test the property for recent residues of Regulus' magic…

"Of course," Remus says. Stretching out across the bed, he leans forward to kiss Sirius. "But you'll come and eat something for dinner first?"

"This is blackmail," he says sulkily, allowing Remus to kiss him.

"Of the very worst kind," Remus agrees, brushing his lips over Sirius' temple.

He sighs, as Remus climbs onto him. "You didn't want me to know."

"No. I didn't. I'd rather lie to you than hurt you," Remus says.

He's about to say that Remus shouldn't be making those sorts of decisions for him. But it isn't true. He _does _want Remus to make those decisions. He's spent the last couple of hours cursing Remus and James and Lily and Dearborn for not being better at keeping secrets from him, because he doesn't want to think about the fact that his brother might be – probably is – a Death Eater.

"Amazing," he says quietly.

"What's that?"

"That you can know me so well when it comes to all of this," he says, looking at Remus. Of all of them, Lily and Remus were the ones that didn't give anything away. And it must have been a lot harder for Remus, who Sirius sees everyday. "But you still don't know what sort of jam I like."

"Don't I? You like cherry jam in your tea – only in your Russian Caravan Tea, that is, you take your Darjeeling black. You like blackcurrant jam on toast, and plum jam on scones. And while you don't mind raspberry jam, I happen to know that you hate the brand that I licked off you this morning because they don't add sugar, and so the jam's a lot sourer than other sorts of raspberry jam."

"You really do know me," he says, awed by Remus' knowledge of him.

"I do. I only bought that jam so that I'd have an excuse to go out again in the afternoon. I didn't think we'd be telling you anything today, and I didn't want you knowing that I was meeting with Dumbledore," Remus says, raising himself up off Sirius' body, but lowering his head with clear intent.

"You're really quite freakish, you know," he breathes, lifting his head up to meet Remus halfway.

"More than you think," Remus agrees, smiling.

He closes his eyes in anticipation of the kiss, but what he actually gets is Remus' forehead crashing down hard onto his own.

"Ow! What are you - " He opens his eyes at once, to see that all of the colour has drained out of Remus' face and tiny, tiny beads of sweat are starting to pop out of his skin. "Remus…" he whispers, worried.

"My arm…" Remus gasps, twisting in pain.

"Wait here!"

He wriggles out from under Remus and is off the bed in a heartbeat, racing towards Remus' room, scrabbling through the nightstand for Remus' Mind Sleep. _Where have you got to? Come on, come on… _Giving up, he draws his wand and casts _accio_. Still nothing.

"Fuck!"

He runs back to his room, realising that Remus has taken six Mind Sleep tablets in three days – less than three days, really. He's about to dig as much valerian as he can out of his own Trainee kit, but remembers Dearborn's words – no treating patients on his own. Especially Remus.

_Floo. Quick._

He's half way to the kitchen when Remus screams.

It's the hardest thing in the world to make himself ignore the sound and keep going.

A Healer can't drop what he's doing to respond to a screaming patient – there is an order of priority to follow, and putting a Floo call through to St Mungo's, and getting Dearborn to come through, is far more important than comforting Remus right now.

Grabbing the Floo tin, he carefully flicks some of the powder into the fire. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see where Remus has left the cooling cupboard open.

"St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries!"

He gives the cupboard a kick to close it while he waits to be connected. When there's no immediate response, he tries again, with a larger amount of Floo powder.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm trying to get through to St Mungo's," he tells the switchboard operator, trying not to swear as she slowly glances down at her console.

"St Mungo's… The hospital?"

"Yes," he says, biting back a sarcastic retort.

"I'm afraid all of their lines are busy, at the moment."

"Well, can you put me through when there's a line free?"

"It may be a while, and - "

"I don't mind waiting," he tells her, smiling insincerely. "Just give me a shout when you can connect me."

"Well, the thing is, I'm about to come off my shift, and - "

"All right. Fine. Can you put me through to Lily Evans? In London?"

"Certainly. Connecting you n- "

"Padfoot?" James says, as he answers the call. "What's the matter?"

"Can you both come through? I'll explain in a minute," he says.

"Just one sec… _LILY!_ Hang on, Padfoot. Let me see where she's got to."

He's practically chewing his fingernails by the time they come through the Floo.

"What's the matter?" James asks, looking worried.

"It's Moony's arm. It's playing up again, and he's used up all of his medication. I can't get through to St Mungo's. Can you go there in person and ask for Dearborn ?"

"Of course. Do you want us to try to get him to come here?"

"Just tell him Remus' arm is acting up. He'll know what that means. Thanks, both of you. I have to go and check up on Moony – we'll be in my room, okay?"

There's another scream from his bedroom, then a crash, and then a steady, repetitive thumping sound. He doesn't wait for James or Lily – simply takes off towards Remus without another word.

Remus is sitting on the floor with his back propped against Sirius' wardrobe, slamming his arm against the door.

"Remus!" he shouts, over the racket. "Stop that! You're going to make it worse."

"You're wrong," Remus says, smiling in a truly horrible, maniacal fashion before running his arm into the door again. "The more I make it hurt on the outside, the less pain I feel on the inside."

"Remus…," he says, going over to his boyfriend and helping him to stand. "Come back to the bed. Let me take your shirt off, hmm? That way, you'll be ready for when Dearborn gets here."

Remus' breath is coming in groans and his clothes are soaked with sweat. "I was supposed to see him today."

"Ssh, no talking. No 'I should have' or 'I forgot to' or any of that. None of this is your fault. Let's concentrate on making you better." _Where the fuck is Dearborn ?_ "Come and sit down for me. That's right."

"Can't you brew more Mind Sleep?" Remus asks, flinching as Sirius starts to remove his shirt.

"That takes time, my love. Dearborn will be here soon – James and Lily have gone to get him," he says.

Rather than peel the shirt off Remus, he slices it off so that it doesn't rub against his injury. Balling up the scraps, he wipes Remus' face and throat, mopping off the sweat.

"Sirius… Sirius, please do something." Remus has the fingers of one hand clutching at Sirius' side, tightening his grip as he speaks.

"Let go of me, Remus," he says gently, trying and failing to pry Remus' fingers off. "Please, Remus. That hurts."

"There must be something you can do," Remus gasps, his fingers spasming as he releases Sirius.

"They can't get Dearborn to come to the front desk, Padfoot," James says, appearing at the door. "I asked Lily to keep hassling them. Thought you might need some help here."

"Okay," he says, taking a deep breath. "Thanks, Prongs. Can you keep Moony from moving about? I just need to grab something out of my kit."

James nods and takes over from him, applying pressure on Remus' right side to keep him from lifting off the bed.

"Sirius!" Remus screams. "Sirius, it hurts!"

"It's all right, Moony. He's on his way," James says soothingly.

His fingers aren't nimble enough to undo the catch on the kit fast enough for his liking, so he smashes it against the bed, and then holds it upside down, the contents raining down onto the floor. There's a phial of double‑distilled Murtlap Essence, which he snatches up at once. Right next to it is hellebore extract – a jar full of tablets that he can use to immediately reduce Remus' pain and anxiety.

"Here, Remus, I want you to chew on this," he says, pressing the hellebore extract past Remus' lips. "Don't crunch them down immediately, all right? I need you to chew on them slowly."

"Mmm-hmm," Remus murmurs, around a mouthful of hellebore.

"What do you have there?" James asks, gesturing to the phial.

"Murtlap Essence. It'll have to go directly onto the wound," he says, sticking the phial in his mouth so that he has it ready to hand, while he undoes Remus' bandages with his fingers. "Fucking _hell_," he swears, almost spitting the phial out.

The gouges haven't healed – not one bit. They're black and wet, and the smell emanating from the wound is enough to make him gag. _I've seen worse than this. I've seen worse than this_, he tells himself, trying to make himself believe it. For a second – just a second – it looks as though something in Remus' arm moved. _But that can't be… James is holding Remus still… _And then it moves again.

"_Accio _scissors!" A pair of silver scissors springs out of the kit and into his hand. He brushes the blade against the black, rotting flesh - _not Remus' flesh, no_ – avoiding getting the silver into Remus' blood. The black, putrid flesh collapses under his touch. It's so unhealthy that there is very little circulation, and very little blood. That by itself makes him want to be sick, but he moves the scissors a little faster, opening the wound up more. And there, intertwined with the living muscle of Remus' arm, is the culprit — a snitch-sized tangle of greyish-black chizpurfles.

_No wonder you kept knocking back Mind Sleep tablets as though they were chocolate frogs…_

"What the fuck is that?" James says, staring into Remus' wound in disbelief.

"Chizpurfles," he says, setting his scissors down and summoning his tongs. "I think they were absorbing the Mind Sleep Remus kept taking, and that kept them knocked out, but when it wears off, they start to move around, burrowing into…" He takes a deep breath before continuing. "Burrowing into Remus' arm. Can you tip the tablets out of the jar?" he says, gesturing to the hellebore extract. James does as he's told, and passes the jar back to him. "Thanks. Remus, you all right there? How's the pain?"

"_Hurts_, Sirius," Remus whimpers, flinching as the knot of chizpurfles pulses and writhes.

"Can't remove them until the hellebore takes effect," he says, reaching for his wand and transfiguring his silver tongs into copper.

"Why not?"

"Because they'll try to take most of his arm off with them," he says calmly, pretending that he isn't talking about his boyfriend. "It'll be agony. But once the hellebore kicks in, I can take them out, and then completely heal the damage afterwards."

"Sirius!" Lily shouts from the doorway. "Sirius, there's no sign of Dearborn anywhere. I've Patronused him twice, and my Patronus came back each time."

"Thanks, Lily," he says, without turning around. "Sorry to do this, but could you go back to St Mungo's and get me some glumbumble larvae?"

"Glumbumble – all right. How much?"

"At least twenty."

"Done," she says, Disapparating with a 'crack'.

"How are you feeling there?" he asks Remus, smiling as he sees that Remus' eyes are unfocused. _Finally_.

"The pain's stopped. Am I dead?" Remus asks.

"No, Moony. 'Fraid you're still with us," James laughs, visibly relaxing now that he doesn't have to work as hard to keep Remus still.

"Not dead. Dying, then. Sirius?"

"No talking now, Remus," he says, steeling himself to start extracting the ball of chizpurfles.

"I love you," Remus says, looking at him and smiling. "In case anything… In case I… You should know that."

For a second, just for a second, he thinks of laughing or looking at James and rolling his eyes. Something to indicate that the hellebore has completely unhinged Remus' mind, and that he's babbling – which, to be fair, it has and he is.

But something stops him.

And instead, he takes the phial out his mouth, lowers his head, kisses Remus gently, lovingly on the lips and then says, "I do know it. You aren't dying. And I love you too."

He's aware of James looking at him silently. Turning to face him, he says, "Since Seventh Year. In case you're wondering."

"Since _Seventh_… I can't believe I wasted nearly an entire year of my life worrying that you were never going to find anybody," James says disgustedly. "_When _in Seventh Year?"

"Actually, it was the summer before Seventh Year now that I think about it," he says, grinning at James' outrage. Flexing the tongs, he reaches carefully into Remus' injury, surrounding as many of the chizpurfles as he can before clamping the tongs down onto them and pulling.

"So, longer than Lily and I?"

"Longer than Lily and you. If it makes you feel any better, I wasted a bit of my Seventh Year worrying _you _were never going to find anyone."

"I wouldn't say he's entirely out of the woods yet," Lily says cheerfully, coming up from behind them and kissing James on the cheek.

"Keep those away from me!" James yelps, dodging away from her.

"You got the – Perfect," he says, smiling as Lily holds up two handfuls of wriggling, soft, white grubs.

"They wouldn't actually let me have any. I even went to the apothecaries and asked my friend Violet, from school, if I could buy some, and still nothing. I can't believe how tight they are. I only wanted a handful!"

"Not as tight as y-" Remus starts to say, before Sirius shushes him. James laughs softly.

"Anyway, I stood outside their front door and cast _accio_," she says, grinning happily. "And then Apparated out of there before they could come after me."

"You're a champion, Lily. Can you hold onto those for the moment? I don't need them just yet."

It takes a couple of firm yanks, but he finally dislodges the tangled ball of chizpurfles, and draws them out of Remus' arm. Picking up the empty jar, he drops them into it. One or two of the greyish-black, wormy looking creatures untangle themselves as they explore their new surroundings. Quite a lot of them are painted red with Remus' blood.

"What on earth _are _those things? Are they snakes?" Lily asks, almost dropping the larvae in shock.

"Chizpurfles," he says once more. "Mostly asleep, but they're starting to wake up. Their eggs are found in oil – a really rancid, black oil. If the oil rubs off on your skin, the warmth of your body hatches the eggs. I noticed the oil on Remus' clothing that day itself. I should have _known _what had happened."

"You couldn't have known. For all you knew, Remus hurt himself falling down stairs while he was on holiday at the seaside," Lily says. "Besides, I only vaguely remember chizpurfles from Defence Against the Dark Arts. They're hardly a commonly occurring creature."

"No, but they're used a lot for - " He stops, as he realises what they're used for. "Prongs, can you get the valerian from my kit and chuck some in their jar?"

"You don't need me to hold him down anymore?"

"You didn't need to hold me down at all! I would have kept still if you'd asked me nicely," Remus says, annoyed that he is being talked over.

"I did ask you nicely," he says, as James releases Remus to go and look for the valerian. He gives Lily a helpless look, wordlessly asking her to ensure that James correctly identifies the herb. As much as he adores James, herbology and potions were _not _among his strengths.

"Ask me nicely again," Remus pouts. "Say I'm your love."

Behind him, he can hear Lily exasperatedly telling James that he's holding aconite, not valerian. He doesn't mind James knowing about him and Remus, but he's not sure how he feels about Lily knowing.

"Remus, my love," he says, bring his lips to Remus' ear and whispering the words. "Can you please keep very still for me?"

"Only for you," Remus says magnanimously.

"Thank you," he says, quickly pressing a kiss to Remus' forehead. "Lily, can you drop the larvae into the wound?"

Lily comes around to stand in front of him, carefully dropping the larvae, one at a time.

"What are y- I don't like that," Remus says, almost yanking his arm away before Sirius grabs him and presses his arm against the bed. "Stop that! Let me _go_."

"We need to clean out the wound, Remus."

"They're moving under my skin!"

"There may be more eggs yet to hatch, Remus. I can't close the wound until they're all out. It will only take a – Hey!" he says, when Remus kicks him. "I asked you nicely to keep still!"

"I don't _like _it," Remus snarls, kicking him again.

"They're not hurting you, Remus. They're making you better."

"_Sirius_…"

"Sssh," he murmurs, holding Remus' elbow down hard against the bed with one hand, and using the other to gently scratch behind Remus' ear. "It's all right. It'll only take a few minutes, and then can I take the larvae out."

"Larvae, honestly," Lily says, watching intently. "It's so medieval."

"Did Muggles use larvae in the Middle Ages?" he asks, curious.

"Not glumbumble larvae, obviously. House fly larvae. Maggots," she clarifies, drawing her wand. "That one looks full. Shall I take it out?"

"Yeah, we can start removing any of the ones that are looking particularly fat. I counted thirty‑six, going in."

"Me too. Come here, greedy," Lily says, drawing out the larva with her wand. "What should I do with it?"

"Really should take them back to the hospital," he says, still scratching Remus. "I'll be in enough trouble without stealing hospital supplies on top of it."

"All right. James! I need another jar," she calls, gesturing impatiently for James to join them.

James brings one over, along with the jar of chizpurfles. "Here. What do you want with this?"

He looks into the jar, seeing that the chizpurfles have eaten the valerian and gone back to sleep. "Nothing for the moment. But they're parasites that can be used to track people. When they're awake, whoever planted them can trace the magic in them and come to them."

"Whoever planted them? Your brother, you mean," James says, handing the empty jar to Lily and setting the other jar on the nightstand.

"You know, I always thought a Healer's life was more glamorous than this," Lily says lightly, dropping the grub into the jar.

"You don't know that it was him. No, you _don't_," he says, when Lily and James look at one another exasperatedly. "What if it was someone using Polyjuice? There's a lot about this that doesn't make any sense," he says, quickly telling them everything he'd said to Remus earlier.

"Well, if it wasn't your brother, who was it then?" James asks reasonably.

"I don't know. But I know how we can find out," he says, checking Remus' injury for any further signs of the oil as Lily and James keep pulling the larvae out.

"Whoever did it is going to come for the chizpurfles when they wake up," James says, not really meaning it as a question.

"Yes," he says, going over to contents of his kit and grabbing the acromantula-silk gauze. Uncapping the phial, he paints the gauze with the Murtlap Essence, and once the last larva is out, daubs the gauze along Remus' wound. "They wanted you to escape."

"Why?" Remus asks, trying to twist away from Sirius as he cleans out the wound.

"Probably wanted to follow us to the Order's Head Quarters," Lily says. "Oh, they wouldn't know the Order existed, but they'd know that _someone _had organised for us to go to Seacombe."

"You think they wanted us to think it was your brother?" James asks him, for the first time appearing to seriously consider the idea that Regulus wasn't behind this.

"We'll know once the chizpurfles wake up," he says, trying to keep his tone neutral as he wraps the gauze around Remus' arm. "How are you feeling, Remus?"

"Sleepy."

"Does your arm still hurt?"

"No. Can't feel it," Remus says, turning to look at his arm and poking at the injury with a finger. "That feels really… weird."

"Stop that," he says, slapping Remus' hand away. "I'm not having you undo all my good work."

"What do we do now?" Lily asks, looking up at him.

"_We_ are not doing anything. _You _are taking Remus to St Mungo's and having him admitted so his arm can be checked out before it's closed up. I've put enough Murtlap Essence in there to deaden the pain for a couple of hours, and lightly wrapped the wound, but it'll need to be closed up properly. By a _trained _Healer," he adds caustically. "That, and one of you has to make sure that Wormtail gets the same treatment. If he hasn't already. I don't know who's treating him or how competent they are."

"What are you going to do?" James asks.

"I'm staying here. I _have _to," he says, when all three of them look at him. "I can't know anything about this, remember?"

"I'm staying with you," James says at once.

"Prongs, there's no need. I'm not going to rush out and tip Regulus off, if that's what you're worried about."

"Aren't you coming with me?" Remus asks plaintively.

"And what about those?" Lily asks, gesturing to the jar full of sleeping chizpurfles.

"We need to get them to someone in the Order," James says. "Can you take them with you?"

"I'll handle everything, shall I?" Lily says, in an overly put-upon voice, stuffing them into her handbag, along with the jar of larvae. "Is there anything else?"

"Yeah," James says, smiling crookedly. "Come outside for a bit so I can thank you properly."

"Well, it's a hardship, but I think I can suffer it," Lily says, following James out.

Just before closing the door, James gives him a very pointed look, and a wink.

"You aren't coming with me?" Remus asks again, in an even smaller voice than the first time.

"I promised I wouldn't give the three of you away," he says, snatching up one of his robes and draping it lightly over Remus' shoulders.

"You're in a lot of trouble because of me, aren't you?" Remus asks worriedly.

"Oh, I'm sure I owe you a few. I seem to recall getting you into all sorts of trouble at school," he says, trying to smile.

"Sirius… Will you be sacked?"

"I don't know," he says quietly, not wanting to talk about it now. "But it doesn't matter. You already saw one of our top Healers, and he couldn't do anything about your arm." Chizpurfles are Dark Creatures, after all, and not everybody has the same background in malign magic that he's had. "I had to do something. And if you honestly believe I need to think about whether your arm or my job is more important…"

"I wish you were coming," Remus says quietly, before leaning forward to kiss him.

"You'll be home before the sun's down," he says, holding Remus' face and bringing his lips to –

"You ready yet?" James calls from outside, banging on the door for emphasis.

They only have time for a quick kiss, but they make the most of it before James knocks again.

"Be good for Lily," he tells Remus, as Lily comes to take him away. Remus blows him a kiss that Lily doesn't see as she leads him out the front door.

"She won't let anything happen to him," James tells him, as Sirius closes the door and slumps into a nearby armchair.

"I know, I just… Well, we've seen what he goes through every month. This was making him scream harder than he ever… Anyway. Hopefully he'll get the attention he needs. Thanks for staying," he adds, giving James a grateful smile. "And sorry for being such a prat, before."

"Not your fault. I just… It was easier for me to avoid you than to tell you lies. Not used to keeping secrets from you."

It's not an accusation, but it feels like one.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Remus," he says softly. "It's…" He sighs. "I'm not ashamed of… It's that it's not legal. Not until we're both twenty‑one."

"You're an unregistered Animagus," James points out. "That's illegal too."

"Yeah, it is. That's why people don't _know_ that I'm an unregistered Animagus."

"_I _know that you're - "

"Yes, but you're one too!" he says, exasperated.

"True," James says, sighing and running a hand through his hair. "It's just… You said in Sixth Year that you were in love with a boy, and you made me help you search for a cure. Remember?"

He does. He'd been hopelessly lovesick and utterly infatuated with Remus. He'd also been fairly certain that Remus didn't return the feeling. So he'd reasoned that since there were potions you could take to make you love someone, there must have been a potion somewhere that he could take to make him stop loving Remus.

"Yeah," he says, acknowledging James' point.

"You said you found a cure," James says. He doesn't sound particularly upset.

"What I said was that I was in love with a boy, and that I was unhappy. The cure… It wasn't a cure for being in love that I found," he says, thinking back to that moment when he'd found out that Remus loved him back. "It was a cure for my unhappiness."


	8. Segue

"How are we going to tell Sirius?" Lily whispers, looking wretched. "He was so sure it wasn't his brother."

Regulus Black had arrived about an hour ago, following the signal emitted by the chizpurfles. Unfortunately for him, the jar of chizpurfles – along with Remus, Lily and Auror Moody – was waiting outside Moody's house. It hadn't taken much effort to subdue him – not with Moody, an experienced Auror, fighting on their side.

Regulus is currently in a Ministry cell, where he'll stay until he can be questioned. More for Sirius' sake than anything else, Remus had asked Moody if they could ask Regulus some questions themselves. He wanted to be able to answer _some _of the questions that Sirius is sure to ask when informed of this turn of events.

Because Regulus is still a schoolboy, however, nobody can ask him anything until his mother has been informed of the charges against him. So he and Lily have settled in to wait for Madam Black to arrive.

"He had me pretty well convinced too," he says, wondering how Sirius will take the news.

"Well, yes, you would have been," Lily says, sounding amused. "You're his boyfriend, after all."

He glances around the waiting room to make sure nobody's listening. "What… What gave us away?"

"You both did, really. I was about to come into his room, but one of the larva started crawling up my sleeve. I stopped outside Sirius' door, trying to get it out, and heard him tell James that he'd been with you since Seventh Year. _And_ I heard you demand that he call you 'my love'," she adds, keeping her voice to a whisper and elbowing him in the ribs.

"You can't - "

"I'm not going to tell anybody, don't _worry_," she says, looking around the waiting room. "I'm just… I'm glad you both have each other. It's odd, isn't it, that it's only in times of crisis that you realise…"

She stops talking and when he looks over at her, he sees that she's tearing up.

"Lily, are you all right?"

"It's just… I almost feel like I should thank Regulus. Because I've never taken James seriously. I adore him, don't get me wrong, but he's always just been… Well, he's always just been _there_. But I was thinking… When Regulus threatened to kill me if I didn't leave right then and there… I can tell myself that I did the right thing by going."

"You _did_ do the right thing," he says. "We wouldn't have escaped if it hadn't been for you."

She gives him a watery smile, dabbing at her eyes with a sleeve. "If it had been the other way around, though. If I'd been a captive, and James was being given the choice to stay or go, he wouldn't have gone. He would have stayed and fought. He probably wouldn't even have needed to think about it. He wouldn't have left me behind. And… He's a better person than me," she says shakily, exhaling in a sigh. "And I wouldn't ever have known if our lives hadn't been threatened. I'd never have known that he's the one I want to - "

She dissolves into tears, and he awkwardly puts a hand on her shoulder, wishing that James were here to see to her.

"See, and it's taken all that," she says, pulling herself together a bit more. "It's taken all that for me to work out that I love your stupid friend. So… We're even, now. Sirius doesn't know that I know that you love him. And James doesn't know that you know that I love _him_."

"You should tell him, Lily," he says solemnly. "I've been telling Sirius everyday. He laughs at me, but he doesn't ever doubt that I love him."

"Yeah," she says, giving another shaky, sigh.

"I've a message from the Head of your Department," comes a bored drawl, from the other side of the partition. "Says he wants to see my mother. She's not feeling well, so she asked me to come instead. Can someone tell me what this is all about?"

He and Lily look at one another in shock before edging up to the partition and peering at the new arrival.

It is Regulus Black.

The _real _Regulus Black, it turns out.

They lose no time in getting out of there as quickly as they can, racing home so that they can give Sirius the good news.

Except that when they arrive at the flat, Sirius and James are blind drunk. And when Lily demands to know _why _they have been drinking, the two of them look conspiratorially at one another and then start to giggle like school boys.

"This isn't funny!" Lily snaps, hauling James up by his ear and shoving him through the Floo. Her sharing her revelation with him – that she loves him – is clearly going to have to wait for another day.

"How'd it go?" Sirius asks, making a supreme effort to stop giggling when Remus regards him sternly.

"I'm not telling you anything until you sober up," he says, searching through their cupboards for a bottle of Sobriety Potion. Finding it, he pours out a glass and hands it to Sirius.

Sirius takes a sip, makes a face and then loses interest in it, coming over to Remus and rolling up his sleeve.

"Who did this?" Sirius asks, running his fingers over the smooth, unmarked flesh of Remus' arm.

"Madam Pomfrey," he says, rolling his sleeve back down and handing the glass back to Sirius, watching him take another sip. "She wasn't too pleased to see me," he adds. "Thought she'd seen the last of me last year. But she was very impressed when I told her that you'd done most of the work on my arm. Not bad, for a mediwitch."

"Pomfrey's a full Healer," Sirius says, draining the glass. "She's only called a mediwitch because that's the title you get if you work with kids."

The Sobriety Potion is starting to take effect on Sirius. He's not talking as quickly as he normally does, but he's no longer slurring his words either. As much as he wants to tell Sirius everything that has happened, he wants Sirius to be sober when he hears it.

"I thought I told you to go to St Mungo's?"

"We did, but Dearborn wasn't there. So Lily Patronused Moody, and - "

"Who?"

"Alastor Moody, Dumbledore's lieutenant on the Ord - "

"_Mad-eye _Moody?" Sirius says incredulously, before bursting into laughter.

"_Sirius_," he says, trying to get him to take this seriously.

"Sorry," Sirius says, still snorting with the effort of not laughing.

"Moody took us to Hogwarts, and Pomfrey closed up the wound."

"Not Dearborn ?"

"We were told he was busy doing other - "

"Busy, busy, busy Dearborn," Sirius mutters with drunken belligerence. "No time to treat patients. No. That's not what a Healer's _for_," he adds darkly, before laughing again.

"Stop that, Sirius," he says. "Do you need more potion?"

"I don't need more anything! Go on then. Tell me the rest of the story. I won't laugh."

"While Pomfrey was patching me up, Moody took the jar of chizpurfles to his place." He still shudders at the thought of those wormlike creatures hatching and nesting in the flesh of his arm.

Sirius seems to visibly sober up at this revelation. "Who came for them? Someone _did _come. Was it Regulus?"

"It looked like Regulus," he says. Sirius' face falls. "It looked like him, but it wasn't. Sirius, it _wasn't _your brother."

"Not…"

"We thought it was, though, and Moody arranged to lock him in a Ministry cell. But because he's still at school, they had to inform your mother." Sirius' eyes widen in shock. "So they sent for her, but… Well. She's not well, as you know, so instead of coming herself, she sent Regulus. And that was when we realised that whoever it was we had in the cell… it _wasn't _your brother."

"Who was it?"

"We don't know. We'll find out soon enough, and I didn't want to hang around there. Not when I could come here and give you the good news."

"The good news," Sirius says, sitting down heavily on a nearby chair and laughing again. "Well. I've had the bad news, so I suppose it's only - "

"What do you mean?" he says sharply? "What bad news?"

"Got this. A little while ago," Sirius says, waving a bit of parchment at him. It's on St Mungo's letterhead, from what he can see. "It's from Dearborn . _Dear _Dearborn," Sirius says, with poisonous sweetness. "Too busy to heal the sick, but he somehow found the time to arrange this."

"What does it say?" he says, feeling as though the ground beneath his feet is falling away.

"Suspension. Until the end of the summer."

"Because of me?" he asks in a small voice. Sirius draws a shuddering breath instead of answering. "It's my fault, isn't it?"

"It's _his _fault for not fucking being there tonight!" Sirius snarls, his expression twisting into ugly, animalistic rage. "It's _not _your fault."

"Can I see the letter?" he asks, holding a hand out for it.

He can understand that Sirius is upset, but it's only a suspension after all. It's not as though he's been sacked. There must be something in the tone of the letter that has set off this uncharacteristic fury in his lover.

"That's not the worst of it," Sirius says, all of the anger leeching out of him suddenly. "He also says that because I won't have completed a full year as a Trainee, I have to repeat my First Year," Sirius says, now sounding close to tears. "And that I won't be his protégé anymore. I'll be assigned to a Third Year – well, one of the current Second Years. I hope it's Cresp," Sirius says, sounding wistful.

He hasn't the faintest idea who Cresp is, and doesn't care. Instead, he reads the letter, hoping for some way out of this.

"So you're all right," Sirius says, poking Remus' arm. "How's Lily?"

"Lily was never actually sick, Sirius. She only pretended to be ill so that she and James would have an excuse to leave when they were over for breakfast."

Sirius blinks in confusion, taking this in. "You were right, you know. Not to tell me anything. I hate knowing."

"If we hadn't told you anything, your brother would be in a lot of trouble right n- "

"Who cares! What has he ever done for me?"

"_Sirius_. You don't mean that," he says worriedly.

"I don't want to be a First Year again, Remus. They'll all laugh at me," Sirius whispers, sounding mortified.

"Nobody's going to laugh at you Sirius," he says. Sirius glares at him, wordlessly saying that he will not be patronised. "Look. Both Wormtail and I went to Dearborn as soon as we were injured. I don't know about Wormtail, but you can't claim that Dearborn treated _me _properly."

"The eggs wouldn't have hatched when he saw you," Sirius says. Remus wants to smack him for defending Dearborn, but lets it go. Sirius' blindness to glaring faults in those he loves or admires is one of the many things Remus has resigned himself to having to get used to. "And you were supposed to see him today, but you didn't. Perhaps he thought you were all right."

"But Wormtail was in St Mungo's, under observation. They hadn't a clue what was wrong with him," he points out. "You were able to tell exactly what was wrong with my arm once you took the bandages off. _And _you knew exactly how to fix it."

"You were _drugged, _Remus. How do you know any of - "

"Pomfrey told me. She also Floo'd the hospital while I was there, telling them how they should treat Wormtail. If Dearborn wants to knock you back to being a First Year, I'll make a fuss about how I was treated. I'll point out that I wasn't actually cured until you interfered. They can't make you repeat anything then. Not when you're brighter than one of their senior Healers."

Sirius looks surprised and awed when he hears this. "You'd really do that for me?"

"Would I really – _Yes._ Of course I would," he says, going over to Sirius and pulling him to his feet. Sirius collapses against him, embracing him tightly. "I'd do anything for you," he adds, sweeping Sirius into his arms.

"Then put me down."

"Not this time, pet," he says, kissing Sirius on the forehead. "My arm is fine, and it's high time someone attended to you." They stop outside Sirius' bedroom, and he looks inside. "I see you still haven't cleaned up in there yet?"

"I've been suspended, Remus," Sirius says irritably. "I've all the time in the world. It'll keep."

The resignation in Sirius' voice makes him sadder than he can say. But now is not the time for _that _conversation. Instead, he carries Sirius to _his _room, lowering him gently onto the clean covers.

"Lily and James - " Sirius says, looking around for them as if he expects them to be in Remus' bedroom.

"They've gone back to her place," he says, lying down next to Sirius.

"James is going to ask her to marry him, you know."

"Tonight?"

"No. Of course not tonight," Sirius says, smiling tiredly. "Has to buy a ring, first."

"Of course," he says, cradling Sirius' body close and rocking him gently. "Is that what you want?"

"A ring? No. But… Prongs even said he'd be our binder, if we wanted."

He's still mortified that he gave the game away to James _and _Lily. But he's immensely relieved that they've both been so understanding.

"And the vows themselves?"

"We can come up with the right words," Sirius says, turning to look at him. "Don't you agree?"

"Yes," he says, pressing his lips to Sirius' forehead. "But I'm not holding you to anything you say tonight. You're upset, you've had a really awful shock, and you shouldn't be committing to - "

"I'm not saying we'd do it right now," Sirius says, sounding put out. "I'm not _stupid_. Besides, I don't think the vows bind if you've been drinking. But we can at least talk about it."

"Yes," he agrees. "But not tonight. I'm not taking advantage of you when you're hurt."

"All right," Sirius says, closing his eyes.

"Sirius?"

"Mmm?"

"What was that charm you used the other day? The one that lets me hear your heart?"

"_Cuore sano,_" Sirius murmurs sleepily.

"How do I cast it?"

"Like this," Sirius says, opening his eyes and reaching for his wand, casting the spell. "Now you," he says, handing his wand to Remus.

"_Cuore sano_." At once, he can hear Sirius' heartbeat, rapid and anxious in spite of how tired he looks.

"Did it work?"

"Yes," he replies, putting Sirius' wand on the nightstand and settling back down onto the bed. "You know, this is more than – " he starts to say, when he's interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Who could that be?" Sirius asks, his eyes open, his body tense and his heartbeat quickening even further.

"I'll find out," he says, giving Sirius a kiss before going to investigate.

_Is it James? Regulus? … Dearborn ?_

It is Dumbledore.

And he wants to see Sirius.

He asks the Headmaster to have a seat while he fetches Sirius, before returning to his room. The blood drains out of Sirius' face when Remus tells him who it is.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he offers, holding Sirius' hands and squeezing his fingers.

"No," Sirius says, smiling at him. "I don't want to get you into trouble. Wait here for me."

In spite of Sirius' request, he follows after him, staying out of sight of the front room so that he can hear the discussion.

"Good evening, Headmaster," Sirius says, unfailingly polite.

"Good evening, Sirius. I'm sorry to trouble you so late in the evening, since you - "

"That's quite all right, Professor."

" – probably have to work in the morning."

There is a small pause, and then Sirius says, "I'm on holiday, Professor. It's no trouble."

"On holiday? That must be a relief. I hear the training is quite rigorous."

_No. You **bastard**. You know that he doesn't have to work tomorrow. You **know** he's been suspended. That's why you're here._

"It can be challenging," Sirius replies, resolutely refusing to give up any ground. "May I offer you a drink, Headmaster?"

He feels a savage burst of pride as he realises that Sirius has probably reached the same conclusion, and isn't going to volunteer the information that he's been suspended.

"No thank you, Sirius," Dumbledore says. "You know, your supervisor Caradoc is an old friend of mine, and - "

He makes himself stay and listen to it all.

How Pomfrey told Dumbledore all about what a talented Healer Sirius is. How it's such a shame that Caradoc suspended Sirius. How it's particularly distressing, since they need good Healers.

"I beg your pardon, Headmaster, but I'm afraid you've lost me there," Sirius says, still somehow managing to sound respectfully polite. "You said that 'we' need good Healers. Who is it that you're referring to when you say 'we'? Madam Pomfrey isn't resigning her position at Hogwarts, surely?"

The Headmaster humours Sirius, and tells him about the Order. Unlike the speech he gave Remus, Dumbledore doesn't say anything to Sirius about keeping secrets from his friends.

Sickened to his very core, he realises that with Sirius' suspension and threatened demotion, Dumbledore has the hook he needs to recruit Sirius into the Order.

"Thank you for the offer," he hears Sirius say at last. "Could I have a few days to think about it?" He doesn't hear Dumbledore's response, but he hears the front door creak open. "Thank you. You'll have my answer shortly." The door closes firmly.

"Did you hear all of that?" Sirius appears in front of him, looking a hundred times more exhausted than he did before.

"Seems you haven't really been suspended or demoted," he says.

"Why didn't he just ask me?" Sirius whispers. "Where was the need for all of this… All of these games?"

"He doesn't trust you," he tells Sirius. "Your brother - "

"I'm not my brother," Sirius says firmly. "And my brother isn't a Death Eater."

"We don't _know _that he isn't," he says. "If you'd been with us when a man who looked like your brother attacked us, would you have been able to make yourself fight back?"

"I would have known it wasn't Regulus if he had. Regulus wouldn't have attacked you if I'd been there," Sirius says, rubbing at his forehead.

"You don't know th- "

"_I DO KNOW THAT!_" Sirius roars. "For fuck's sake! You've been wrong about him from the beginning! Why do you persist in _arguing _with me about – _Yes, _we don't know that he's _not _a Death Eater, but bloody hell, Remus! I could put almost anybody's name on that list! What do you know about him that I don't?"

"Nothing," he says, ashamed of himself. Sirius is right. Regulus Black is guilty of nothing more than being an extremely unpleasant wizard. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Sirius says, with a bitter laugh. "I know what my family is like. I don't blame you for thinking the worst of them."

"Sirius - "

"It doesn't matter. Let it go," Sirius says, his tone making it clearer than his words that the discussion is closed.

"Are you going to join the Order?"

"I'll have to now, won't I? Dumbledore'll probably _obliviate _me if I refuse, now that I know all about it."

"I know he's treated you unfairly, Sirius, but…"

"But what? I _said _I'd think about it. Just because I don't like him doesn't mean that I don't believe in his cause. In fact, the same is true of Regulus. Just because he believes the same things that Voldemort does, it doesn't make him a Death Eater."

"You're right," he says, feeling ashamed all over again.

"Of course I'm going to join, Remus. I was going to say so, but… Well, I decided to follow your advice."

"What was that?"

"That I'm in no condition to be making decisions about anything tonight."

"No," he says. "You're not."

They smile wearily at one another. He doesn't want to fight with Sirius over this, and he knows that Sirius doesn't want to fight with him, either.

"Coming to bed?" Sirius asks.

"In a minute," he says, as something occurs to him. "You go ahead. There's one last thing I have to do."


	9. Part 5

_Day Thirteen— afternoon_

"Sign just here," Deanna says, pointing to the ruled line. He signs his name and the letters glow faintly before the spell catches. "And here. No, not where it says 'Igraine Andros'. Sign where it says 'Sirius Black'. And here. And here. And – last one – _here_. All right. That's it, then."

It's obvious that she wants him to leave, but unless she makes a direct request, he's not going anywhere.

"Master Black," she says, smiling charmingly at Regulus. "If you would be so kind as to sign this?" It's a cheque made out to St Mungo's, requiring Regulus' signature to authorise it.

"There," Regulus says, signing it with a flourish. "Don't go spending it all on sweets."

Deanna giggles as though he's said something hilarious, before curtsying off on her way.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, eyeing Regulus suspiciously.

"I heard you'd been demoted," Regulus says. "And while I don't doubt it's the least your incompetence deserves, I also happen to know that _you're _the reason I'm not currently in a Ministry cell. Or worse, Azkaban," Regulus adds with a shudder, checking that he has all his papers in order before pulling his gloves on. "This cancels any debt between us. Besides, I can hardly donate the money to Mulciber's cause after his nephew impersonated me, can I?"

"You didn't have to tell Madam Andros that the donation was conditional on - " he starts to say, trying to get his younger brother to meet his eyes.

"_You _didn't have to risk your career slicing up that Mudblood you live with to prove my innocence."

"How do you know about - "

"In fact, you make sure you tell him that," Regulus says fiercely, giving him the answer he wants. "We're quits, all right? I don't owe you anything."

"No, you don't," he says, smiling at the ferocity on his brother's face. "Do you know yet what Mulciber wanted with my friends?"

"Believe me," Regulus says angrily, "I have every intention of finding out."

"Will you tell me, when you find out?"

"Will I tell you?" Regulus asks, pretending to think about it. "Haven't I done enough for you recently?"

"Black!"

"You'd better go," Regulus says, looking eager to be rid of him.

"Take care of yourself," he says, watching his brother leave. He knows, deep down, that just because Regulus isn't a Death Eater _now, _it doesn't mean that he never will be. But he hopes he never has to find out.

"_Black!_"

"Yes, Healer Dearborn ?" he says, coming to attention.

"I hear that you're officially a member now," Dearborn says.

"As of yesterday, Healer. I understand that you wanted to discuss my performance?"

"Not quite, Black. We'll discuss your performance once you're back on deck," Dearborn says. "But I did want to speak with you, yes."

He clutches Madam Andros' commission tightly to his chest. There are at least five copies of it, so he's not _too _worried about losing it, but if this meeting in Dearborn's office is going to be about what he thinks it is, he wants a copy on hand.

Regulus' donation has not only provided St Mungo's with enough money to set up a new ward for the exclusive treatment of Muggle or Muggleborn patients, it was also conditional on Sirius being reinstated as a Second Year Trainee.

He'd almost been physically ill when he heard that. The thought of being beholden to his brother – to his _younger _brother – for something was almost more than he could bear. And then it turned out that Regulus was doing it to clear a debt, and not for his own puerile entertainment.

"There you are, Caradoc," Dumbledore says, as Dearborn opens the door to his office.

"Albus," Dearborn says, acknowledging him with a nod "Come in, Black."

"Thank you, Healer. I apologise for keeping you waiting, sir. I had some unexpected paperwork come up," he says, stamping hard on the butterflies in his stomach.

Dumbledore is already seated in Dearborn's visitor chair, and doesn't stand up to greet him, although he nods sympathetically at Sirius' mention of paperwork. Dearborn seats himself behind his desk, leaving Sirius as the only one standing.

"It's an important cause you've joined, Sirius," Dumbledore says. "There aren't many members, in large part because of the constraints of secrecy we work under. But also, unfortunately, because not everybody agrees that this is a cause worth fighting for."

"_I _believe that it is, sir," he says, wanting to dispel any doubts before they are voiced.

"Given the small number of people that we have, it's important that our members are able to function to the best of their ability," Dumbledore says, steepling his fingers together and regarding Sirius over the point. "Caradoc," Dumbledore says, looking over to Dearborn, "Sirius informs me that you've had him suspended?"

_I did **not **inform you_, _you lying bastard, _he thinks furiously. Dumbledore turns to look at him and for a moment, he's afraid he's said it out loud, but Dearborn doesn't look up.

"I have," Dearborn says shortly, stroking his beard. "For not obeying orders."

"With respect, Healer," he says quickly. "I'm training to be a Healer, not an Auror."

"I remember another Trainee who had trouble following orders," Dumbledore says, as though Sirius hasn't said anything. "I seem to recall reading reports that said that Trainee Dearborn was one of the most insolent, insubordinate Trainees ever to grace St Mungo's, but that his contempt for procedure was matched only by his brilliance as a Healer."

He blinks at that, trying to picture Dearborn – one of the most senior, most competent, most unflappable Healers at St Mungo's – as a wet-behind-the-ears Trainee.

"That was almost forty years ago," Dearborn says, waving a hand dismissively. "Things have changed."

He doesn't take this personally. He knows that this entire play is for his benefit. In fact, he almost laughs out loud when Dumbledore says, "You and Poppy are our only Healers. You're the only one who's truly a member. Sirius has agreed to join our cause, and it would be a waste of his ability if he was kept back a year."

_You don't trust me because I'm a Black, _he thinks contemptuously_. But you don't truly know what being a Black **means**. I'm not some stupid schoolboy. I was the heir to one of the pre-eminent Houses in wizarding society. And I've been trained to play games with far higher stakes than this one._

"You want me to reverse my decision?" Dearborn says, turning to look at Sirius for the first time. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Caradoc - "

"He's right, Professor," he says quickly, before he has to listen to anymore of this. "He can't reverse his decision."

Dumbledore turns to look at him too. "I would have thought you would have liked to complete your training as a Healer, Sirius?"

"I would, sir," he says. "But Healer Dearborn can't reverse his decision. It's already been reversed." Dearborn raises his eyebrows at him in surprise. "Madam Andros was kind enough to sign my commission personally," he says, setting the parchment on Dearborn's desk. It's still warm, with his signature continuing to give off the occasional spark. "I appreciate your coming in person to intercede on my behalf." He doesn't quite dare say that he doesn't owe Dumbledore anything, but he knows that the Headmaster has taken his meaning when he adds, "I'm afraid it's been a wasted trip, Professor."

"Not wasted at all, Sirius," Dumbledore says, eyeing him steadily. "I'm sure I'll see you again soon. Caradoc. It's been a pleasure," Dumbledore says, standing up. Dearborn stands up as well, showing him out.

"Sit down, Black," Dearborn says, closing the door after Dumbledore.

"Healer, I'm actually still on holiday as you said, and I - "

"What I said was 'sit down'," Dearborn says, shoving the visitor chair at him and almost amputating his legs at the knee. Dearborn resumes his seat behind his desk, reaching for Sirius' commission, his dark eyes scanning over it quickly. "This almost appears to be genuine."

"It _is _genuine," he spits angrily. "If you don't believe me, you can ask - "

"Calm down, Black. I assume Andros has two of these, with the other two in our records? Here," Dearborn says, smiling crookedly and taking something out of a drawer. "You can add this to your collection."

"This is…" he skims over the document. It is a letter reversing his demotion. Signed by Dearborn and dated… "You signed this yesterday."

"I thought you were on to me when you agreed that I couldn't reverse my decision. I was going to say the same thing – I already _had _reversed my decision."

It's as if someone's lit a fire in his head, the knowledge comes to him so suddenly. "You wanted me to find out about the Order."

"I agree with Dumbledore. We need more Healers. But he was never going to ask you just like that."

"How do you know?"

"Because he told me. You'd been here about a month when I realised how adept you were at healing. It was two months after that that I realised that all of your friends were members of the Order. That was when I _asked _to have you join, but I was told no. He wasn't sure of you yet. So, I had to do it the hard way." Dearborn says, pulling a bottle of something out of a cupboard, along with two cups. "Drink?"

"Yes, thanks," he says, feeling a little light headed.

"I have to say, I'm amazed you lasted this long before giving me the provocation I needed to suspend you," Dearborn says, pouring the drink – from here, it smells like brandy – into one of the cups. "I was expecting you to snap within your first three months, but you can keep your temper when you need to, can't you? Your health," Dearborn says, not waiting for an answer and leaning forward to clink cups with Sirius.

"And yours," he says, before tipping his head back and swallowing the brandy.

_You wanted me to find out,_ he thinks as he sets his cup down_. You fed me information through Cresp. You told Remus to come here for treatment before my shift was finished. You forbade me to treat Remus. You suspended me so that Dumbledore would make the offer, and you withdrew the suspension before he asked you._

"You've been put through the wringer, Black," Dearborn says, flicking his wand at the cups. "But you've the nous to stay above it. I don't think the old man has the faintest idea of what you're capable of."

"I'm… Thanks," he says, flattered.

"It's a pity we had to waste all of this time doing it in this roundabout way. But I'm glad for it. Better than the alternative, certainly. I wouldn't have liked you being coerced into joining the Order, and I'm afraid all too many of our members…" Dearborn sighs, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "It doesn't matter what your goals are," he continues, in a quiet voice. "There is no justification for deceiving people, or forcing them, or blackmailing them, or… You take what people are willing to give you without binding them to you with obligations or threats."

"I understand," he says, softly.

Dearborn looks up as though surprised to see that he's still there. "Well. Good, then," Dearborn says, smiling. "Enjoy the rest of your holiday."

"Yes, Healer," he says, smiling back. "I'll be back in a week."

"Actually, Black, you won't. The document says your demotion was reversed. It says nothing about your suspension. You're not due back until the end of summer."

"You could always reverse that," he says, confused.

"I could, but I won't."

"There's work to be done, Healer," he says.

"Yes, there is. But not here," Dearborn says. "The Order has need of you. Don't worry, you'll still be paid for - "

"That wasn't what I was worried about, Healer," he says quickly, shocked that Dearborn could think that of him.

Dearborn smiles. "There's plenty of work for you to do. Enjoy the rest of your week off. You'll be sure to have the details of your first assignment before the week's up."

"Will I be working to you?"

"We'll have to see," Dearborn says, pretending to think about it. "Go on, get out. And if I catch you around here before the summer's over, I _will _have you slicing up toads for spare parts for your next ten shifts."

~*~

_Day Thirteen — later that same afternoon_

"You're home early," Remus says, looking up from the Prophet as Sirius lets himself in. "I wasn't expecting you for another couple of hours."

"All signed and official," he says, waving his papers at Remus before flinging them onto the table.

"Does this mean you have to go back to work tomorrow?"

"No," he says, clambering into Remus' lap and grinning down at him. "I've still got the rest of the week off. And after that," he says, pausing to kiss Remus, "I have the summer off work, but I'll be doing things for the Order."

"Is that right," Remus says, nipping his throat and curving his hands around Sirius' arse.

"I've a message for you. From Regulus."

"Oh really? What does he have to say?"

"That his debt is cancelled. You wouldn't happen to know what that was about, would you?" Remus grins at him. "He was quite adamant that I tell you."

"I'm sure he was," Remus says innocently.

"My demotion's been reversed," he says, resting his forehead on Remus' and staring into his eyes. "I'm a Second Year Trainee once the summer's over. _You_ did this. Thank you," he whispers gratefully.

"There's no need to thank me," Remus says, removing his hands from Sirius' arse for a moment and then returning them, this time slipping them under the fabric of Sirius' trousers to cup his bare flesh directly. "You should know by now that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you. Or _to _you," he adds, grinning back as he pinches Sirius.

"Oh yes? What is it you want to do_ to _me, then?"

"_Well_," Remus says, kissing him on the nose while pinching him again. "I was thinking that since I'm still on my holidays, and since you have some time off, and since neither of us require medical attention, we might go on a short holiday of our own."

"Why, because you want to make the most out of the booking you abandoned in Seacombe?"

"Sirius, as I have told you repeatedly, there was no holiday in Seacombe."

"I'm still getting used to the idea," he says, pressing closer into Remus and nibbling on his neck.

"There is, however, a holiday in Spain," Remus says, breaking off in a moan as Sirius bites him harder.

"Spain?" he asks, lifting up from what he was doing.

"Malaga," Remus says. "Why have you stopped?"

"Why are we going to Malaga? What's in Malaga?"

"A proper coastline, for one thing. Not like that sodden misery calling itself a beach at Seacombe. It's also the birthplace of Picasso. And there's a wizarding community there. One where someone's worked out how to adapt the standard, wedding spells so that they can be used to bind two men to one another."

He stares at Remus, not sure what to say.

"When I say standard wedding spells, I mean the ones you told me about, that tie into the birth of the first born or the loss of virginity and so on. There are four wizards there that can perform the spell. I've made an appointment for us for next - "

He doesn't really hear what Remus says, remembering Dearborn's words from earlier.

_There is no justification for deceiving people, or forcing them, or blackmailing them, or… You take what people are willing to give you without binding them to you with obligations or threats._

"What do you think?" Remus finishes, looking up at him.

"Is this what you want?" he asks.

"What I want…" Remus says, kissing him slowly and tasting him thoroughly. Pulling away, Remus looks at him with bright eyes. "_Cuore sano,_" he whispers, smiling as the charm takes effect. "If I could find a way to make that permanent… That's all I want. Some way of knowing you're alive. That you're all right."

He casts the charm himself, hearing the familiar, soothing _thrum _of Remus' heart.

"But I know you need more than that," Remus says, his thumbs rubbing firm circles into Sirius' skin. "And I found this place in Spain that's worked out how to join us. It's not a mental or physical transfer spell, and it's not a variant of the Unbreakable Vow, either. People use these spells all the time."

If they go ahead with it, he'll be able to point to Remus with eyes closed, and he'll have a rough sensation of what Remus is feeling, particularly if he's feeling it very strongly.

"I thought you wanted to be bound to me," he says, resting his head on Remus' shoulder.

"It was the longest I'd been apart from you," Remus says, kissing his cheek and then his ear, before pressing his face against Sirius'. "There were times when it was so awful I thought I might never see you again. And then when I had you again… I panicked. I wanted nothing more than to join you to me forever."

"But none of those spells were right for us," he says.

"No," Remus says. "And even though I've found one that is… You see, I don't need a vow from you. You looked after me when I was ill. You were pulling parasites out of my arm and dropping larvae into my injury and you still found it in you to kiss me, because you could see I was distressed. If that isn't true love, then I don't know what is."

"It's all right," he says, lifting his head off Remus shoulder, and smoothing Remus' hair from his face. "I don't… I've changed my mind, too."

"What made you change your mind?"

"I was talking to Lily," he says. James had asked Sirius whether he thought Lily would agree to marry him if he asked, and Sirius had promised to do his best to find out. "About how Muggles get married. You know, because they don't have any spells. And she said they just say the words to one another. But they do it in front of all of their friends and family."

"Don't wizards do that too?" Remus asks, confused.

"Well, yes, but you see, for you and me… We've already said the words in front of other people. We've said them in front of James, for one thing. And it wasn't until Lily told me that about Muggles that I realised… I don't want a vow from you. You've already made heaps of promises, at least one of which has been witnessed. You certainly haven't broken any of them. And… And that's enough for me. The fact that James knows about us… It makes it more _real_."

"Lily knows too," Remus says. "She found out the same way James did. You don't mind, do you?"

He always thought that he _would _mind, but he finds that he doesn't. "No, I don't mind."

"I spent ages trying to think of vows that we could swear to one another," Remus says.

"So did I," he says, still smoothing Remus' hair. "But even something as simple as 'I swear that I will love you forever' won't work. I want you to love me forever, Remus, but if for some reason you stop… I'm not sure that I'd want you to die. It's like… It's for the same reason you'll tell me not to move, rather than tying me down. I can move if I want to. _You _just ensure that I _don't _want to."

"Yes, exactly," Remus whispers, starting to work Sirius' trousers off his hips.

"But we're still going to Spain," he says, wriggling out of his clothing, and grinding his erection against Remus' body.

"Of course," Remus agrees, starting to stand up slowly and carefully, cupping Sirius' buttocks and holding him close. "And if you won't accept my vow, promising that I'll love you forever, well, then…"

"You'll just have to show me," he says, wrapping his legs around Remus' waist and straining forward to kiss him. "Everyday."

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


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